DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE OF FRP FOAM SANDWICH STRUCTURE WING FOR A UAV

摘要

The design and processing of a new UAV wing is introduced in this paper. The UAV is launched on board or on ground, recovered on the sea. The wing structure has to meet some useful requirements, such as watertight ability, damage-floating ability, and ability to withstand the corrosion in marine environment. The wing, span 4m, is designed to be FRP (fiber reinforced polymer) foam sandwich structure, which is consisted of low modulus thin-shell FRP skin and low-density PU (polyurethane) foam, as well as inner structure components. Except the framework in the wing, the other inner space of the wing is fully filled with foam. This paper presents the design idea, the static strength and stiffness analyzing and calculating of the wing structure, the stability analyzing and designing of "foam supported" thin-shell skin etc. the inner framework is especially dealt with for the foam-filling technique. A kind of foam-filling technique, foam-in-place pouring, is developed for the manufacture of this wing. One of three parts of the wing is got by pouring foaming agent into its mould, which has FRP skins and inner structure components. The results showed that the wing made by the technique had good entirety, accurate shape and lightweight. The wing had been made and passed a series of checkouts and tests. The UAV with this wing have flown many times successfully.