EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE COMPOSITE WING STRUCTURE EMBEDDING SOLAR CELLS
Résumé
Reducing the CO2 emissions is one of the major objectives in aerospace engineering. In this regard, XSun startup is developing an autonomous solar drone, SolarXOne. The latter is independent on one hand in decision with an autopilot and on the other hand in energy using solar cells and batteries. This paper aims at presenting the mechanical behavior of the solar cells and their interactions with composite structures. In our experimental tests, the wings are subjected to the maximum load that they will undergo during a typical flight. They have been instrumented with Distributed Optical Fiber Sensors (processed with LUNA ODiSI-B). The digital image correlation measurements (processed with VIC 3D) allow us to estimate the strain in the wings. Wing skin mechanical behavior is characterized by deformation measurements under loadings. These strains are replicated on tensile test specimens with and without solar cells. Comparison of strains in these specimens reveals the impact of solar cells on the structure.
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