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Materials Selection for Glider Design
Executive Summary of Engineering Materials Technical Writing Report
The purpose of the work is to design a glider for commercial use along with a joist system to lift the glider using a crane. It aims to be sold to customers in various parts of the world.The total weight of the glider without wings section is 400kg with a wingspan of 10m. The average wing width is 1m. The maximum deflection of the wing should not exceed 2m. The material used for wing design is carbon fibre due to its low specific gravity and damage resistance. The wire fiberglass is preferred because of its lightweight. For the bridge section, Titanium alloy is used due to its high yield and tensile strength. The depth of the wing is calculated from the data given as well as the diameter of the wire.
Wing Design
Material properties are important while designing a part of a machine. For designing a glider, the thermal, mechanical, electrical, chemical, and miscellaneous properties of the material ought to be considered (Goel, 2018). The thermal properties of a material include thermal resistance, flame resistance, and Coefficient of thermal expansion (McNamee, Pimienta & Felicetti, 2019). These properties can be used to analyse the thermal withstanding power of the materials for further purposes. Two major mechanical properties to consider for a material are yield stress and tensile stress. The wing of the glider should withstand glider fuselage and tail section weight. The various electrical properties include the Electric strength and conductivity of the materials. Along with these properties, the miscellaneous properties like specific density, permeability and optical properties have to be considered during manufacturing of a machine or any other product (Goel, 2018).
Earlier gliders were designed using woods only but later aluminium and steel were used to manufacture them. However, nowadays using advanced technology, a composite structure is used for designing glider wings (Demircali &Uvet, 2018). Glider design requires efficient design due to highly demanding environments. The composite materials have high thermal/thermo-oxidative stability, high glass transition temperatures (Tg), flame resistance, and chemical resistance. A mixture of glass and plastic, called glass fibre, reinforced plastic can be used to get fine control over the shape of the glider wing. This technology was in use for over 30 years. The glass fibres are then replaced by the carbon fibres (Hamerton & Mooring, 2012) due to its low specific gravity, better crash protection, and good landing gear. The low specific gravity can provide lower weight to wings compared to glass fibres. Apart from this, carbon fibre materials reduce drag and can be designed to long-last with long wings. This gives a high aspect ratio to the design (Demircali &Uvet, 2018).
The wing has a rectangular cross-section. A weight of 400 kg is acted upon the centre of the wing. The rectangular cross-section beam experience yield stress is d= 0.0018m. Please refer to the calculations in Appendix 1.
Material for Top Wire
There are many choices for the top wire-like fiberglass, carbon fibre wire, and carbon tissue which are also known as carbon veil. Fiberglass is light in weight as it weighs half an ounce per square yard.A fiberglass wire with the same thread count in both directions is used as wire material (Joyner, 2011).This will reduce the warping due to equal strength in both directions. In order to reduce the snags the wires are placed on a horizontal surface. A drafting brush with nitride is used to gently strike to smoothen the wires.Carbon-fibrewireshave weights of approximately 2.2-2.9 ounce. Carbon fibre wires are stronger than fiberglass but expensive compared to them. Most of the manufacturing technics are similar for both carbon fibre and fiberglass. They have the same nearly tensile strength. Square feet of carbon fibre coasts around 18 dollars to 22 dollars. Carbon fibre wires are expensive compared to fiberglass materials and are suited for high tensile applications. For the design of the wire, fibre glasses are preferred over carbon fibre. Also, the required parameters are R=0.0176m so diameter D=2R=.051m. Please refer to the calculations in Appendix 2.
Material Used for The Bridge
Titanium alloy is used as the material for the bridge. They have high tensile strength and are light in weight. Titanium alloys withstand high temperatures and have high toughness (Krishnan & Rajiv, 2017). Such alloys have yield strength >1400 M Pa and tensile strength >1600 M Pa along with 5% elongation. This makes the materials suitable to be bridge materials. The yield strength and tensile strength are very close in the case of titanium alloys. They exhibit high toughness and strength at extremely low temperatures (-253 Degree Celsius). Here, the deflection of a rectangular beam. Please refer to the calculations in Appendix 3.
Conclusion on Engineering Materials Technical Writing Report
The design of a recreational glider is done in this work. Different material properties are considered for designing the parts of the machine. Carbon fibre materials are suited for wings design while fiberglass is suitable for wire structure and Titanium alloys were used for bridge design. Parameters like depth of wing, a diameter of the wire, and side of the square bridge are calculated for given values.
References for Engineering Materials Technical Writing Report
Demircali, A.A., &Uvet, H. (2017).A study of unmanned glider design, simulation, and manufacturing.CBU International Conference Proceedings, 5, 1064
Demircali, A.A., &Uvet, H. (2018).Mini Glider Design and Implementation with Wing-Folding Mechanism.Appl. Sci, 8(9), 1541
Goeal, A. (2018). Balsa Glider Design. Retrieved from https://engineering.eckovation.com/balsa-glider-design/
Hamerton, I & Mooring, L. (2012).The use of thermosets in aerospace applications. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/gliders#:~:text=Gliders%20(both%20in%20their%20powered,are%20almost%20always%20constructed%20from
Joyner, L. (2011). MATERIAL CHANGES. Retrieved from http://modelaviation.com/freeflightmaterials
Krishnan, K., & Rajiv, S. (2017).Metallurgy and design of alloys with hierarchical microstructures. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/titanium-alloysm
McNamee, R. J., Pimienta, P., & Felicetti, R. (2019). Thermal properties. In Physical Properties and Behaviour of High-Performance Concrete at High Temperature (pp. 61-69). Springer, Cham.
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