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Bridgeport Research Duo Create and Analyze 3D Printed Frame for Quadrotor Drone

Quadrotor frame assembly in exploded view.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are agile and resilient enough to be piloted, and monitored, from remote distances. With four flying dimensions and six degrees of freedom for pitch, roll, space, and yaw, drones can be used for a wide variety of applications, such as farming, documenting 3D information about historic archaeological sites, photography, military and defense, acting as first responders during natural disasters and rescue operations, and 3D printing.

Multirotor drones have multiple fixed wings and have a high level of maneuverability, and are classified further based on factors like position, orientation, and number of rotors. A pair of researchers from the University of Bridgeport recently published a paper, titled “Design and Analysis of 3D Printed Quadrotor Frame,” detailing their work using 3D printing to create the frame for a quadrotor drone.

3D printed drone assembly bottom view

The abstract reads, “This research emphasizes more on 3D printing a quadrotor with ‘X’ shaped frame. We built a CAD model of drone frame using SOLIDWORKS, following that; we performed three types of finite analysis 1. Static structural, 2. Impact analysis, and 3. Modal analysis. The drone frame is simulated and analysed under various boundary conditions such as lift, drag, and thrust till the optimized results of minimum displacement, a factor of safety is achieved. We printed the frame of drone on PRUSA I3 Mk3 3D printer by using ABS-PC and carbon fiberglass materials as the filament.”

The researchers designed a CAD model of their X-framed drone in SOLIDWORKS using multiple constraints, including:

  • length of the propeller, which determines the length of an arm
  • motor rotor diameter and electronic speed controller width, which contribute to determining a drone’s arm width

Highlighted surface area is the fuselage

They designed the arms of the drone to translate force away from the fuselage, which helps electronic components maintain minimal damage if the drone has an accident or fails. The fuselage of a drone is “the eye” of its electronic components, like the receiver, power distribution board, and flight controller, and the duo designed a housing to protect the fuselage’s components in the event of a crash.

The dimensions of their drone frame, which was 3D printed on a PRUSA I3 Mk3 3D printer out of carbon fiberglass and ABS-PC, are 175.14 x 171.42 x 48.75 x 226 mm.

The researchers explained, “To perform FE analysis, the forces acting on a frame are determined, which are 1.The Weight of the frame and all the electronic components on it normal to the ground, 2. Lift force direction is a resultant between thrust and vertical take-off, towards the direction of motion, 3. Thrust generated by the propeller and motor towards the direction of motion and 4. Drag force acting in opposite direction of motion.”

Strain deformation

The researchers manually calculated and applied the forces acting on the 3D printed frame during simulation, which resulted in three plots: Von Mises stress, displacement, and strain deformation. They were able to run a sequences of cycles in SOLIDWORKS where the drone crash-landed, and gained simulation results by compiling all of the collected data. Additionally, they also completed a static structural analysis – a phenomenon called plasticity – by considering a non-linear analysis based on the materials used to make the frame and the rate of deformation, and completed a modal analysis of the 3D printed frame in order to measure the dynamic excitation caused by vibrating motors.

“A 3D printed quadrotor frame with safety factor 2.5 is attained and various finite element analysis performed on the frame are distinctly mentioned and plotted in the figures. Further, we can 3D print a 3- axis gimbal and attach it to our quadcopter for aerial photography. Also, we can upgrade them by attaching few thermal imaging sensors and gas sensors to measure radiation and air pollution at certain heights,” the researchers concluded. “This shows the main advantage of the 3D printed quadcopters and makes them stand distinct to the market-ready drones. We can customize them to make them work in any environment just by changing the printing filaments.”

3D printed drone assembly isometric view.

Co-authors of the paper are Sai Mallikarjun Parandha and Zheng Li.

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Examining the Effectiveness of 3D Printing for Drone Construction (MALE UAVs)

Drones are becoming more and more a part of modern life, being used for everything from military applications to delivering pizza, not to mention the growing number of hobbyists using them personally. Drones have come of age, so to speak, alongside 3D printing, and therefore 3D printing is commonly used to construct drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs. In a paper entitled “Implementation of FDM technology in MALE UAVs,” a group of researchers discuss the advantages of using 3D printing for drone manufacture.

MALE stands for Medium Altitude Long Endurance. According to the researchers, there are numerous advantages of using 3D printing over other methods of fabrication. Using PLA makes UAVs more eco-friendly, for one thing, and also improves their strength to weight ratio. 3D printing allows designers to densify certain areas, such as the landing gear or nose tip, that will experience greater impact, while compensating by reducing weight elsewhere. The technology also makes it easier to create an aerodynamic design, and saves time, money and effort compared to other manufacturing methods.

In the study, the researchers developed a 3D printed drone fuselage, which is described as the “backbone” of the drone. It serves as a housing for payload as well as many other components, so there are several weight, aerodynamic and structural constraints that have to be considered in its design. The length of the fuselage also affects the stability of the drone, and it is important to streamline the body so that air can flow around it in such a way as to keep the drag effects low.

Other techniques are sometimes used for manufacturing the body of the drone, such as subtractive manufacturing of Styrofoam or Balsa wood, and while they have their own advantages they also have several disadvantages: a Styrofoam sheet is non-aerodynamic, while constructing a drone out of Balsa wood is “cumbersome as well as time-consuming.” In contrast, 3D printing a fuselage is easy and allows for a great deal of design freedom.

The researchers 3D printed several iterations of the drone before arriving at the final version, which was “aerodynamically stable as well as mechanically robust.” Stress analysis was performed using FEA simulations through an ANSYS tool. They analyzed both nose impact and belly impact.

In the nose impact analysis, the maximum force applied was 25 N and the maximum deformation was 1.09 mm.

Nose impact analysis

“The analysis is oriented in such a manner that the wing berth is taken as fixed support thereas, the motor mount is assumed to have a ramped up force impact on it,” the researchers state. “The feature shows that the maximum deformation would occur at the joint of two different parts which were manufactured separately and then joined together using cyanoacrylate.”

For the belly impact analysis, the maximum force applied was 25 N and the maximum deformation was 1.1435 mm.

Belly impact analysis

“As the fuselage is deemed to land on its belly during the landing approach,” the researchers continue. “Moreover, in any case the first impact would be on the bottom surface only. Considering the purview of the given problem statement, the analysis is shown above where the impacts on grilled bottom and wall surfaces have been shown.”

The researchers conclude that FDM 3D printing technology is an effective way of constructing drones, with excellent build precision and high strength to weight ratio. It allows varied material composition on different parts of the drone, and is overall simple, cost-effective and time-saving.

Authors of the paper include Ankur Dwivedi, Darshit Desai and Deepesh Agarwal.

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