Masters Thesis

Static pitch stability of canard configured aircraft

This graduate study is about analysis of the static pitch stability of a canard configured aircraft which flies at low Reynolds number. Design assumptions of this project are numbers for the canard aircraft which was designed and built by CSUN 2011 aeronautics team (winner of 6th place in 2011 AUVSI competition). After checking and simulating of several airfoils based on canard configuration requirements FX63-137 and SD7062 were chosen to use for canard and wing. To meet the canard configuration requirements and gain a proper stall margin between wing and canard stall points, wing and canard chord lengths were chosen 13" and 5". The expected location of CG which was 3.6" in front of the wing leading edge was achieved by applying the surface ratio of 85% for wing and 15% for canard (the sum of wing and canard surface areas was 10ft2). Pitch static stability of the aircraft were confirmed by gaining the static margin of 5.7% for the expected cruise flight at 50ft/s which occurred at zero angle of attack for the aircraft. In order to decrease the cruise angle of attack to zero and move the CG location to expected point, angle of incidence of 1 and 4 were utilized to wing and canard.

Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.