High Altitude Long Endurance UAV - NASA Design Challenge
This project was for an Aircraft Performance and Design class offered at Boston University. The project my team chose was actually one not offered by the professor, but one offered by NASA. This design challenge tasked us with designing a HALE UAV to take off from Edwards Air Force Base in Nevada, fly to the west coast of Africa to observe hurricane formation zones and loiter at 60,000 feet for 10 days, and then make the return trip home to Edwards all on one sortie and one fill up of fuel.
From the designs, the project was not very CAD intensive as you can see in the photos; they were supposed to be a preliminary design. The design process was heavily dependent on calculations and iterative spreadsheets. Main design drivers for this UAV were high L/D ratios, large Aspect Ratio, and selecting an engine with a large prop diameter and significantly low SFC (specific fuel consumption). As you can see, the wing area is massive and on first designs, we attempted a 400 foot wingspan with a potential Low Reynolds Number airfoil to stay within the laminar regime of flow. The wing ended up being too long with its cantilever configuration, so a joined wing design was decided upon to add wing area and lift will increasing structural stability and strength.
The fuselage shape was borrowed from the MQ-1 Predator, however the wing design and stabilizer design significantly differ from that of the Predator and Global Hawk (which were our two comparison aircraft).
From the designs, the project was not very CAD intensive as you can see in the photos; they were supposed to be a preliminary design. The design process was heavily dependent on calculations and iterative spreadsheets. Main design drivers for this UAV were high L/D ratios, large Aspect Ratio, and selecting an engine with a large prop diameter and significantly low SFC (specific fuel consumption). As you can see, the wing area is massive and on first designs, we attempted a 400 foot wingspan with a potential Low Reynolds Number airfoil to stay within the laminar regime of flow. The wing ended up being too long with its cantilever configuration, so a joined wing design was decided upon to add wing area and lift will increasing structural stability and strength.
The fuselage shape was borrowed from the MQ-1 Predator, however the wing design and stabilizer design significantly differ from that of the Predator and Global Hawk (which were our two comparison aircraft).