Assessment of the Mechanical Properties of Selected PLA Filaments Used in the UAV Project

The paper presents the evaluation of selected mechanical properties of PLA filaments used in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The manuscript covers a short description of the principles of pattern design and presents a shortened division of incremental manufacturing technologies. The authors present and argue the choice of material that can be used in the UAV drone design. This material has been subjected to experimental tests in order to assess selected mechanical properties that can be successfully adapted to CAD/CAM/CAE systems in order to conduct engineering analyses. The manuscript presents a discussion on the influence of the method of specimen production on selected mechanical properties, as well as the issue of errors made when measuring selected mechanical properties. In addition to the assessment of the mechanical properties of the selected filament, the manuscript indicates how to adapt the determined material constants to the FEM calculation model and presents the effectiveness of topological optimization in engineering design, which allows to reduce the weight of the drone frame by about at least 20% compared with the value originally assumed.