The design of a high aspect ratio HALE aircraft composite wing. Part I: Static strength analysis

High altitude long endurance (hale) uav is a type of aircraft that is able to fly in high operational altitude (±65,000 ft) and longer duration (±36 hours). this aircraft uses a high aspect ratio wing,up to 25. in this paper,the design of a high aspect ratio wing will be performed. the global hawk rq-4a was used as a test case. static strength analysis with tsai-wu failure criteria will be used. the carbon/epoxy t300/5208 is selected and the results will be compared with the use of aluminum 2024-t3. two laminate configurations were used in this study. they were (0°/0°/+45°/-45°)s and a quasi-isotropic (0°/+45°/-45°/90°)s. the aim of the study was to find a minimum weight while fulfilling the strength criteria. finite element method was used extensively during the study,using nastran software. the results showed that the wing with laminate configuration of (0°/0°/+45°/-45°)s was 30% lighter than the one with quasi-isotropic configuration,and was 60% lighter than the aluminum wing. © 2015 by the faculty of mechanical engineering (fkm).