A Semi-Empirical Approach for Estimation of Wing Weight, with a Case Study for a HALE UAV

A method has been developed to address the need for accurate and quick wing mass estimation during an aircraft’s conceptual design phase. This semi-empirical approach considers the constraints on structural strength and stiffness, the Factor of Safety and includes the creation of a CAD model, load calculations, Finite Element Analysis, and optimisation of the thickness of the skin and spar. This approach allows designers to minimise the wing weight and streamline the estimation process, using commercially available and open-sourced software, viz., CATIA V5, ANSYS, XFLR5 and MATLAB. As a demonstration of this methodology, the proposed method is applied to estimate the weight of the wing of a High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The results have been validated against wing weight for an existing HALE UAV wing design and is found to agree within 7.5 used for five different wing spans, and the trend of results is presented.