Topology Optimization of the Combustion Chamber of a Model Airplane

In recent years, the model airplanes have been used increasingly for many applications such as fire extinguishing or spraying fertilizers on agricultural fields. The weight of the model airplane is an important parameter because light-weight airplanes have an advantage of carrying more cargo. The purpose of this paper is to minimize the weight of the combustion chamber of the model airplane engine by topology optimization. To this end, the finite element model of the cylinder block is created and the von Mises stresses due to the combusting fuel are evaluated. Then, considering that the maximum stress should not exceed a predefined value (based on the yield strength of the material and a safety factor), as well as considering constant internal shape for some parts of the structure, the topology optimization is carried out using the solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) to minimize the weight of the cylinder block. By doing so, the weight of the cylinder block has decreased around 23% while the maximum von Mises stress has not been changed significantly comparing to that of the initial design.

Keywords:

Model Aircraft , Topology Optimization , Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization , von Mises Stress