Generative design study of a remote-controlled plane’s wing ribs

The main objective of this work aims at weight reduction of a Radio Controlled (RC) plane’s wing rib. By this there will be an increase in the flight time and better payload carrying capacity of the plane. Every single RC plane competition require the plane to carry the maximum payload or payload fraction. The prime focus in this work is to reduce the weight of the Chico-1 (RC plane), flown by Team AeroVIT in the SAE Aero Design Regular Class Competition has been considered. All the design aspects of the plane same is kept as the original plane design. The airfoil design was Selig 1223 and a -4o angle of attack. The plane was designed according to the problem statement to achieve the maximum points. The total wingspan was taken as 3.22 m and the chord length was 0.44 m. The length of the wing generating lift on one side of the fuselage is 1.527m and this wing length will be analyzed as it generates half of the total lift. There are 11 ribs in the wing outside the fuselage. The whole wing is covered by a plastic monokote covering. The ribs are equally spaced and the lift force on the wing is equally supported by the ribs. It also consists of one hollow aluminum spar passing through the rib made of polylactic acid (PLA) and is of a thickness of 4 mm. By reducing the mass of the ribs, it is possible to carry a much heavier payload without compromising the strength of the wing. In this paper the coefficient of lift and drag through fluid flow analysis of the wing rib is calculated first using ANSYS Fluent. After which the required forces acting on the plane rib and the pressures acting on the surface of the rib is determined. The forces are applied and then a generative design study is done on the rib using Autodesk Fusion 360 to find the best design result. The ribs will be manufactured and then implemented to assess the improvement achieved by this study.