Design and Analysis of an Air Inlet Scoop Using Composite Materials

Abstract

The present study focuses on the design and stress analysis of an air intake system of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which plays a critical role in the aerodynamic performance and thermal management of the propulsion system. The structural design considered the main requirements for a small aircraft air inlet where the aerodynamic loads were calculated through a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The pressure distribution and accelerated flight were applied as design and analysis loading conditions. The structural safety was investigated by performing stress analysis of the scoop that was fabricated from carbon fiber composite materials. The commercial finite element analysis software ANSYS was employed to obtain stresses and strains developed in the scoop, while its structural stability was verified through a buckling analysis. The final structural design results were found to have safety. This study presents the design results obtained by applying composite materials. The resulting design achieved a weight reduction of more than 55% compared with the conventional metallic structure.