Because drones are generally small in size and light in weight, and there are differences from the safety standards of manned aircraft, it is necessary to develop and follow a new standard system in material design and processing technology design. Drone material designers are constantly researching and exploring content. At present, the main manufacturing methods include autoclave forming, vacuum bag forming, and compression forming.
The development of drones was first due to military needs. Nowadays, more and more civilian fields are starting to need drones to play a role. Drones are not only widely used in atmospheric research, environmental monitoring, fire prevention and disaster relief, but also in sports photography, leisure and entertainment, and commercial activities. For example, as previously reported in the news, a courier company began to try to use drones in Delivery of parcels in remote areas. Therefore, reducing manufacturing costs, especially carbon fiber composite materials for drones, has become a key research object at this stage.
Carbon fiber drone arm
As a special flying equipment, the UAV does not need to consider human physiological capacity, it can give full play to the performance of carbon fiber composite materials, and consider more design space; it takes into account the load distribution and force of the UAV. Solid carbon fiber usually adopts the integrated design of the casing, which can reduce the weight by about 30%, and also reduce the number of fastener parts and components, and ensure safety. And for the drones in different environments, we can study and design a suitable aerodynamic shape.
Based on the application in other fields, we have further developed, improved and improved the manufacturing process of carbon fiber drones by adopting mechanical automation manufacturing technology. Including the automatic tape laying technology and automatic wire laying technology widely used in the field of aircraft manufacturing, together with winding, pultrusion and other molding technologies, we have developed a carbon fiber composite material manufacturing molding technology suitable for drones. The application of carbon fiber composite materials on drones has explored more technical routes.
Carbon fiber drone housing
In some special fields such as defense and military applications, drones also need to have some stealth performance. Because general carbon fiber composite materials have limited wave transmission and absorption properties, therefore, research and development of absorbing coatings that are compatible with carbon fiber composite materials and have efficient absorbing effects, or by improving the resin matrix to develop Carbon fiber composite materials, or the integrated design of the airfoil fuselage, reduce the reflection of electromagnetic waves to achieve the stealth function.
With the increasing application of carbon fiber composite materials in drones, it is necessary to carry out professional repair technology research on carbon fiber composite materials, especially to develop characteristics that can be adapted to the use of drones. Technology that can repair drone structural materials efficiently, quickly, and at low cost when damaged. At present, there has been some research progress in carbon fiber composite repair technology in China, but no perfect system has been formed at present, especially the low-cost rapid repair technology for carbon fiber composite materials for drones will be an important area for future research.