Investigation on crashworthiness of lightweight thin-walled protective structure of MAV inspired by beetle exoskeleton

AbstractWith bio-mimetic MAV (micro aerial vehicles) becoming increasingly important dual-use equipment, their crashworthiness under impact loads is also considered a key research direction. Based on the micro-morphology of the cross section of the beetle exoskeleton, we proposed the thin-walled structure protection design of several bionic MAV, and used the finite element method to compare the crushing process and energy absorption characteristics of each structure under axial loading, and obtained the thin-walled structure with excellent protection. On this basis, numerical simulation methods were used to study the optimal parameters of the structure, such as impact angle, number of protective layers, and wall thickness. The results show that the energy absorption characteristics of square structure with type #3 are higher than those of all other structures. With the increase of inclination angle, the energy absorption characteristics of the structure generally show a very obvious decreasing trend. The structure with wall thickness of 1.0 mm has better space accommodation and energy absorption ability for bio-mimetic MAV.Keywords: Numerical simulationenergy absorption abilityfinite element methodfailure modemulti-cellular structure Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis work has been supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. xjh012019033, xxj022019019, and 3122018D041), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2020M673410), and Shaanxi Technical Innovation Guidance Foundation (No. 2022QFY10-03).