Design team had done a ton of research into how wings are constructed both for general and ultralight aircraft. With a general understanding of the wing design and some starting variables from the physics team, the design team could start to lay their ideas down into Onshape, an online feature-based design program. At first, Justin figured out how to import an image into Onshape in an attempt to recreate the Clark Y profile with multiple splines. After a bit of research, however, Justin encountered the Aerofoil custom feature script, which allowed him to easily import the exact Clark Y profile. Ollie designed the ribs using circular weight reduction cutouts, but those may be updated later given info from Finite Element Analysis (FEA). We don’t have much experience designing wings so to make our design as adaptable as possible, Design Team has opted to use a series of independent variables to control the overall wing geometry. For example, we have a variable for wingspan, chord, angle of attack, etc… In the photo, the spars are sticking out of the ribs as we didn’t get to finish the dihedral variablization and it’s tweaking out a bit.
Wing Design Day 1: Getting Our Ideas Into Onshape
*Editors note: the thought processes and design choices presented in this article don’t necessarily represent those implemented into the final design and are subject to change. Flight Club Aerospace is a group of amateur students with no formal education in any fields of engineering. We present this information for educational purposes only, with the understanding that it is not to be re-created without adequate professional oversight and mentorship. For our latest designs and updates, please see our most recent blog posts.
