Study and optimization of a hexacopter's composite structure

Abstract: Nowadays, the forestry industry still uses heavy machinery damaging both the forest and the soil. The start-up AirForestry is currently developing a sustainable way to thin and harvest trees. With their 6.2m wide electric drone carrying a harvesting tool, they can reach, thin, cut and carry trees without the need for access roads. Naturally, the drone needs to be as lightweight as possible to increase its endurance and operation range. Therefore, the first version of the drone was manufactured before the thesis with a carbon fibre laminate.  The purpose of this thesis is to study and optimize the composite structure of the drone. The first step is to characterize the existing design through experiments and simulations using the software ANSYS. Static bending loads, free vibrations, and forced vibrations are investigated against a set of predefined design requirements. This study shows that the contact surfaces between each arm and with the motor holders have high-stress concentrations compared to the rest of the arm. This means that most of the arm can be made thinner to lessen the weight with some extra reinforcement on those problematic areas.  The second step is to optimize the laminate to decrease the weight of the structure. A preliminary optimization was made and manufactured at the beginning of the thesis with strict limitations on the choice of the lamina or available thicknesses. Similar bending and vibration experiments and simulations are conducted on the new design to compare it with the older model. While the mass was expected to decrease by about 30 $\%$, the final measured weight of the arms indicates a drop of only 15 $\%$ of the mass. The model is then optimized further with more freedom in the design variables. Several variables are successively optimized: the material choice for the laminae, the thickness then of the laminae, and the angles of the plies. The mass of the structure with the final laminate has an expected decrease in mass of 45$\%$, saving more than 12kg in total