Study of the application of Topological Structural

Optimization in the design of an AeroDesign

prototype
Kalyude Diógenes de Sousa1, Mayla Alencar Medeiros2, Ramsés Otto Cunha Lima1,
Alison Caio Dantas Pereira1
1
Universidade Federal Rural do Semi-árido, 2Universidade Federal Rural do Semi-
árido (Centro de Engenharias)

e-mail: kalyude_13@hotmail.com

A major challenge in the aerospace industry is related to the development of

reliable, efficient, lightweight structures, combined with the least development
time possible. Aerospace structures are usually complex and composed of
combinations of different structural elements, making it impracticable to describe
them with mathematical equations separately. With the advent of high
performance computing it was possible to develop methods for structural
optimization. Among them, the Topological Optimization Method (TO) consists of
the optimal material distribution within a design domain and is usually employed
with the aim of maximizing structural rigidity or minimizing the mass of the
element. Also in the aerospace context, the annual AeroDesign Competition,
developed by SAE BRASIL, in which the greatest challenge is to develop a radio
controlled aircraft with the aiming to ensure its structural efficiency, in other
words, to design, construct and test a light aircraft able to carry the greatest
amount of load as possible, the correct structural dimensioning becomes
essential. Therefore, this research aims to do a comparative study of the design
for the sizign of the components of an aircraft, aiming to mass reduction, using
both the conventional method through the Von Mises Theory and the Topological
Optimization Method with the aid of commonly used software in the industry. An
aircraft destined to the AeroDesign competition was selected as object of study, in
which the TO Method was applied. The study was performed numerically,
considering homogeneous materials dependent on the materials relative density
by means of the SIMP (Solid Isotropic Material with Penalty) procedure. A finite
element method was also applied using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE)
techniques. The results for both procedures converged to a layout with material
well distributed according to the requests that were imposed, providing a
considerable mass reduction for these types of structures.

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