SECTION TITLEADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
FIG. 1(A). Original design
FIG. 1 (B). Arevo design
Magda Zydzik explains how 3D printing is aiding lightweighting efforts for drones DRONES DESIGNING
ver a century ago, the first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – more commonly known as a drone – was brought to life with a paper mache and wooden fuselage and wings made from cardboard. Given their history, drones are by no means a new invention, but recent advancements in technology, such as lighter materials and improved flight controllers, have paved the way for greater adoption of drones in consumer and commercial markets. Initially viewed as a military device, drones now have a foothold in applications that demand high precision and cost-effectiveness compared to pre- existing methods. Applications include inspection, maintenance, surveillance, monitoring, precision agriculture, mapping and surveying, among others. Looking at the horizon for drone technology advancements, a common theme is weight reduction. As drone applications push for higher payloads, longer flight times and reduced weight, composites have become the material of choice with their high strength to weight ratios. Composites manufacturing brings drone-prototyping materials a long way
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from the paper mache and cardboard initially used. Furthermore, advancements in additive manufacturing (AM) have significantly shortened product life cycles and have expedited bringing new products to market. To date, the composites and AM industries have responded to the growing drone industry – the composites industry with stock shapes of varying fibre orientations and moduli, and the AM industry with 3D-printed tooling for conventional composites manufacturing, as well as chopped-fibre reinforced materials to replace unreinforced parts, among other examples.
CASE STUDY Arevo manufactures composite parts using robotics-based additive manufacturing. It believes that its combination of AM, continuous carbon fibre composites and software holds great promise for the drone industry. Using its Xplorator software and directed energy deposition (DED) printing process on its Aqua system, all of which are developed in-house, drone frames and other large, structural parts can be
designed lighter and brought from concept to production. Arevo was presented an opportunity to manufacture a structural frame for an inspection drone. Te objectives were to achieve at least 40% weight reduction while maintaining structural integrity. Te original design featured a motor-to-motor span of 850mm – well within the Aqua system’s 1,000mm x 1,000mm x 800mm (xyz) build volume – and required a 33.5mm vertical space in the centre compartment for ancillary parts. Finally, it was required that the new design support an 8kg payload and that original hole locations were preserved to accommodate for previously designed and sourced components. Upon completing the design and manufacturing of the drone frame using Arevo technology, 50% weight reduction was achieved as compared to the original design (see Fig. 1). Upon reviewing the original design
from the customer, an initial structural finite element analysis (FEA) was performed on the customer’s design using the Xplorator software and representative material properties of carbon tubes from the original design as input.
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