Researchers at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre wanted to determine the optimized desired cruise conditions of different 3-D printed UAVs. They turned to ANSYS software to create, analyze and optimize the design.

1. 1 © 2014 ANSYS, Inc. October 1, 2014 ANSYS Confidential
Solving 3-D Printing Design Problems
with ANSYS CFD for UAV Project
2014 Convergence Conference
John Mann
University of Sheffield AMRC
Design and Prototyping Group

2. Solving 3-D Printing Design Problems with ANSYS CFD for UAV Project
John Mann
Design and Prototyping Group
University of Sheffield AMRC
04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield

3. Design and Prototyping Group
04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield

4. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Image source: Luc Viatour / www.Lucnix.be

5. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Initial Design: Determine desired cruise conditions and considered variety of 3D configurations

6. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Create simple 3D CAD geometries of variations for selected configuration

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© The University of Sheffield
Geometry and Meshing

8. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Solver
•ANSYS Fluent steady RANS segregated solver
•Single equation Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model
•Run on 4 effective CPU cores with 8GB RAM
•2D robustness study

9. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Results
-0.02
-0.01
0.00
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.05
0.06
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
20.00
CM
Angle of attack
6A
6B
6C
6D
6E
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
CL
CD
6A
6B
6C
6D
6E

10. Additive Layer Manufacturing
© The University of Sheffield
04/07/2014

11. 04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield
Development process

12. Testing
04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield

13. Future research areas
•Powered version
•Fractal/Organic structures
•Morphing control surfaces
•Combining ALM with composites
•Additive layer material models
04/07/2014
© The University of Sheffield

14. To
Discover
And
Understand.