A Study of 3D Printed Box Structure

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are commonly used for surveillance and aerial mapping. Balsa wood construction is common for small UAV. However, for larger UAV size, balsa construction can be too fragile. 3D printing based airframe can help in producing accurate profile contour needed in a wing design, particularly on Blended Wing Body (BWB) design. Nowadays, 3D printing machines are not expensive and easily available. Flight Technology and Test Centre (FTTC) RIG, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) has been developing and building small BWB UAV made of 3D printing. At the moment, the strength and stiffness of the wing box structure has not been properly investigated. The general target of this research is to understand the static mechanical behavior of a small wing box suitable for UAV manufactured by 3D printing. A simple wing box that can be produced on in-house 3D printer was produced. Standard tensile test was conducted to the PLA (Polylactic Acid) printed material. Finite element simulation of the wing box was performed, and static test experiment was conducted. Stresses and displacements were obtained and analyzed.