The H-1 project team had a meeting and worked out an idea for printing and assembling this aircraft. We’ll give out more details about the design idea in future posts, as we move forward.
We are thinking of having a structural framing cut out of some sort of composite sheet, possibly plywood. It would handle all of the structural loads, particularly the wing loads from the wing’s spars.
The are some interesting problems to solve in this project. If anyone is interested in contributing, have a chat with us in the comments.
I kind of disagree (respectfully). We are dealing with a 2m wingspan aircraft that is likely to weight over 10kg. It’s huge, much large than southampton’s design. The aerodynamic loads will be quite large.
We didn’t perform the necessary stress calculations to be able to definitely say the stressed skin approach wouldn’t work out, but our guts told us that particularly between layers, the loads would be too great. This is why we chose to design around a stiff/strong internal structural airframe.
Another factor to mention is that strength isn’t the only factor worth considering. You want to avoid much deformation of the airframe from occurring under loads. So a not so stiff, stretchy material absorbing all the structural loads isn’t ideal. That’s our thinking.
you asked for engineers
Has anyone done any materials tests to work out what your allowable stress levels are for the different directions relative to the layer lines?
Our resources are limited, so we try to keep our required level of effort down to a minimum. But if anyone is willing to contribute R&D efforts, performing stress analysis, or anything like that, it’s more than welcome :).
If anyone is reading this, we need to make some estimate calculations for wing loading and perform some stress calculations to make sure the airframe can survive flight. If you have the necessary expertise to do that, have a chat with us.
