Icarus Redux

CSPIT, Changa

THE WRIGHT DESIGN

28th August, 2011

The Wright Design - TDP

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Team Name Primary Contact

Icarus Redux Name Phone No. e-mail id Marm Dixit 9558822406 marm.dixit@gmail.com Abhishek Parikh 7600121197 abhi.parikh305@gmail.com

Secondary Contact

Name Phone No. e-mail id

Sr. No. 1 2 3 4

Name Of The Participant Marm Dixit Abhishek Parikh Dhrupad Parikh Nishit Khunt

College And Place CSPIT, Changa CSPIT, Changa CSPIT, Changa CSPIT, Changa

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

How we arrived at the design.

Inspiration Zanonia is a flowering plant family found in Indian subcontinent and south east Asia. Most of us wouldnt have heard of it, let alone see it. But, there were some who saw. And a few among them imagined. The zanonia seed as shown here was the primary inspiration for the first flying wing glider. Half a century on, it still inspires. The Connect The first thing we inferred after eyeing the problem statement was that the question is difficult, ergo the solution had to be simple. The zanonia seed analogy worked perfectly here; where we saw such a simple shape, glide efficiently. It was a tailless entity, without a propeller and no vertical element. All things asked of us in this case. All we had to do was reform the idea to a workable basis, keeping in mind that the solution lay in simplicity. Initial Designs The wackier ones of us initially planned to mutate a large, large Zanonia seed and "Viola! problem solved. Backing into reality, the first thing a glider should do no matter what it doesn't is: FLY. What follows on the next page are the initial designs, which were suggested and rejected, as fast as a supermodel's boyfriend.

A Zanonia Seed

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

The Concept The main idea behind our designs were to nullify the effects of the rolling pitching and yaw moments along with solving the problem of taking a turn mid air. Stages Of The Design In the end it all boiled down to the following two designs. The common thing in both the designs were following. 1. Airfoil: Of everything that we saw and read and deduced, the reverse camber airfoil was best suited for the case of flying wings. As will be explained later on, this design also decreases the pitching moment and has a better yaw control than the normal ones. 2. Planform: Probably we were all smitten by the Horton series, pre WWII flying wing glider. Inspired from it, we modified it to our present needs, and to make a long story short, that became our planform. The primary difference then in both our design was the turning mechanism and and the controlling system for the moments.

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Design A: has two flaps cut on each wing essentially its part but could be rotated about a horizontal axis. By doing this we would essentially be solving our turning hurdle, but also the pitching and rolling moments could be controlled by slight manouvres of the same. The concept was simple, the only apprehensions about the thing were its manufacurability and our control over it in flight. Design B: In between the tonnes of videos watched, and hours on the net & libraries reading anything and everything we got on the topic, one of us hit on the topic, 'Ailerons'. In wikipedia, though eventually we would land on philosophy, pun intended, we also came across 'Elevators', and the hybrid of the two "Elevons". Stunning in its simplicity, and equally with its functioning, at least theoretically, this became an integral part of the second design. Elevons' proper utilization nullified the various moments and also solved the problem of turning.


Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Final Design The 'Flap' sided wings idea was appealing due to its uniqueness, but it also created major hurdles as to its control. Though clichd in terms of gliders, its ease of control in practice won the game for elevons. The final sketches our glider looked thus like the design B.

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Control Systems
Pitching, Rolling And Yaw : Even from the very first examples of plane engineering there has been a need for elevators and stabilizers to control a plane during flight. Now with the coming age of technology, where jets crack the sound barrier as though it was just a typical joy ride, there is a new breed of aircraft controls that have emerged known as the "ELEVON"! Elevons are specific surfaces that utilize airflow to allow directional changes such as altitude control (pitch), lateral axis control (roll), and vertical axis control (Yaw). They make use of a combination of both traditional stabilizer and aileron flap controls, which have been in use since the dawn of flight. These play an important part for stability controls in delta wing type gliders, V-type gliders where the tail is absent. An elevon supplies roll inputs by moving the controls on either side of the aircraft the same distance in opposite directions. Pitch control is achieved by equally moving both elevons either up or down. Combined pitch and roll control is achieved by moving both elevons either up or down to pitch the aircraft; one control is extended further than the other to induce roll. Generally ailerons only move in opposite directions in equal increments. In elevon designs, they can also move in the same direction and to differing degrees.

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

The result of this additional range of movement is a multipurpose control surface that can both roll the aircraft and cause it to climb or descend. The theory and operation of the elevon is fairly simple and capable of producing very accurate flight control. When the elevons are moved equally in opposite directions as conventional ailerons, the air traveling over and under the wing will push one wing down and the other up, thus causing the aircraft to roll about its axis. If they are both moved up or down equally, the air moving either over or under the wing will cause the aircraft's nose to rise or dip to climb or descend. Combinations of roll and pitch are a little more complex and require compound movement. Both elevons move either up or down to induce pitch motion with one control extended further than the other to induce rolling motion. Reverse Camber Airfoil

As discussed later, the reverse camber airfoil has a nullifying effect on the pitching moment and also it gives us a broader scope with designs.

Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Airfoil Selection
We are using reflexed airfoil (reverse camber) for our glider. It is an airfoil where trailing edge has been turned upwards. Reflex airfoil gives stable C.O.P and it also stabilizes the flying planks. Their benefit is in their lower minimum profile drag. As can be seen from the FBD diagrams of the airfoil, the reverse cambered airfoil creates a nose heavy moment when the lift increases beyond a certain limit. Due to this the wing pitches back into the equilibrium position. Thus it is also a self-correcting technique for pitching moment. The figure shows an airfoil with reflex mean line along with position of the moment and forces acting on it. The reflex camber line makes the moment coefficient positive which means that the moment around c/4 point acts in tail heavy section. In order to compensate this C.G has to be located in front of the C/4 point. Now supposing the glider pitches up. Due to this, we get air force acting behind C.G. resulting in additional nose heavy moment because lift increases (L > L*). With L > L* the wing will pitch down, reducing angle of attack until the equilibrium is reached again.

L= Lift In Equilibrium Condition L*= Lift in disturbed position

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Wing Planform Selection

Initially we had decided to take swept wings as the primary design for our glider due to the following reasons: 1.swept back wings are contributes to more lateral stability, 2. swept back wings produce less lift, so in turbulent weather they are less susceptible to abrupt changes. 3. They are designed with low thickness and high fineness ratio, hence less form drag, 4. Generally they are tapered, so less induced drag, 5. Capable of flying at high Mach no. as actual relative wind speed is at an angle to the wing leading surface and therefore the wind component perpendicular to the wing leading edge is less, and hence the wing senses less speed than actual. So they can fly to high Mach no.'s. Then we heard about the much debated blended wingtips used in Boeing X- 48, we listed out its pros and cons and eventually we just came to like the look of it. Still the few advantages it offers are as follows: 1. From an engineering point of view the main purpose and direct benefit of winglets are reduced airplane drag. 2. It added stability against the rolling moment and also decreased the rol rate.

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Centre Of Gravity: Location, t al.

The approximate position of Centre of gravity and Centre of pressure of the glider is as shown in figure.

The static stability of any flying wing (tailless aircraft) is determined by the following condition
!!! !!!

= !.! !.! ; and this must be equal to or less than zero. Where Cm = coefficient of moment Cl = coefficient of lift

!.! = Distance of CG from the nose

!.! = Distance of Aerodynamic centre from the nose

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

The location of CG with respect to A.C. is satisfied when

!!! !!!

=0

Hence Xc.g. = Xa.c. From this we can say that the farthest aft that the CG can be on a flying wing is directly over the Aerodynamic Centre (AC). Keeping this in mind we worked the wing parameters and the design so as to keep the CG away from the AC as practically possible. This can be seen in the diagram in the diagram above and the one in the wing parameter section which follows.

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Wing Construction and Materials

This is our wing construction idea: We will first make a frame of the entire glider from balsa wood. The central hull region would then be reinforced by compressed thermocol or like materials. We are actually dithering over how to cover the wing section; balsa, the obvious choice, may make it too heavy to fly, and on the other hand sheets or fabrics may render it useless in case of strong winds. Also the blended winglets and the elevons have to be constructed into the wing. We are hoping to get this one problem wrapped up as soon as possible and will notify you once its done. The materials of obvious choice o Balsa Wood o Compressed Thermocol o Fabrics (Maybe) o Plastics (Maybe)

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Wing Parameters

Wing span- 1600 Root chord- 398.22 Tip chord- 185.96 sweep- 23 deg wing area- 467095.84 MAC length- 304.994 MAC distance- 351.5537 C.G- 195.07 from top

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Battery Specifications
A Li-ion battery. 1300 mAh 11.1 volts

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Icarus Redux 28th August, 2011

The Wright Design- TDP

Uniqueness
Elevons Reflexed Airfoil Blended Wings No Fuel No Rudder No Fuselage No Propellor Our's is not a very unique design. No contoured wings, no impossible airfoils, not even a four winged affair. It is basically a conventional glider with a few tweaks here and there, so as to aid us, we think, in the glider's flight. Our Uniqueness is our simplicity. The only question then is: Will It Fly?

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