Overview

This plane was designed to maximize scoring in the SAE Aero Design West international competition by carrying as much weight as possible while meeting competition restrictions.

Competition Flight Diagram

Design Goals

Our goals were based on the SAE Aero Design Rules:

  • Must take off within 100 ft runway
  • Power limited to 750 W
  • Max wingspan of 15 ft
  • Plane must disassemble into 4 ft sections

Taper Ratio Optimization

I was responsible for finding the ideal taper ratio that would balance a reduction in drag and weight. This was done in Matlab by first creating a function to calculate the lift distribution for a given taper ratio. This distribution was compared to an elliptical distribution to determine which taper ratio gave the closest result to elliptical. Another function was created to compute the weight of the wing components for an inputted taper ratio using the densities of the wood used and the component volumes. The final wing design had a taper ratio of 0.4, as found from the Matlab script.

Optimal lift distribution with 0.4 taper ratio

The minimum induced drag is also acheived around a taper ratio of 0.4

Weight Optimization

We wanted to use OpenMDAO to minimize the empty weight of the plane while being able to generate enough lift to get airborne and adhere to competition and structural requirements. This way it could carry as much cargo weight as possible to maximize competition scoring. I used Python to create a component to return the stresses, weight, center of gravity, and displacement of a given fuselage structure and one to calculate the takeoff distance of the plane.

The wings have Gurney flaps for additional lift

Optimized rear fuselage truss structure

Flight Videos

Maiden Flight at Competition

Second Flight with 6lb Payload