| Abstract |
For infrastructure inspections, shelled drones have efficiently and effectively visually inspected various infrastructures, giving good visual conditions and increasing motion effectiveness. In bridge inspection, shelled drones can encounter another problem considering the presence of wind. Improving the flight performance by reducing the overall drag means decreasing the overall area of the shell. However, this could danger the drone because of the larger extrusions of the protective shell component. Thus, adding meshed net further augments the safety and survivability of the shelled drone. An aerodynamic investigation was conducted through Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations and wind tunnel experiments. The addition of meshed net increased the drag force of the shelled drone by 1.52% for the ordinary nylon material and 1.61% for the braided fishing line material. The added meshed net gives only an average value of 1.56% drag contribution for any meshed net material type for the shelled drone. Moreover, reduced overall drag force was attained at increasing sideslip angle application. For bridge inspections, shelled drones will experience significant vibrations due to wind. Thus, the wind tunnel experiment and actual flight test investigated the shelled drone with meshed net vibration response. Based on the evaluation, the shell with any material of meshed net showed system stability. The shell with its monofilament nylon meshed net indicated lower amplitude values, giving a better vibration response than the shell of other meshed net material. The actual flight test in the bridge was made and further verified the performance of the shelled drone with the monofilament nylon meshed net. |
Mindanao State
University - Iligan Institute of Technology