Modelling of assembly is important in product development stages, especially since it is estimated that almost 50 per cent of manufacturing costs are tied up in the assembly process. The greatest potential for increased productivity and significant reduction in production costs lies in the consideration of assembly requirements during the design stage of the product cycle. Assemblies of large compliant parts are widely used in industries such as aerospace manufacturing. These parts will deform in the presence of forces during assembly process and will remain deformed after assembly. This deformation causes variations, i.e. dimensional error and positional error, during the entire assembly process. This paper aims to present a method for predicting dimensional variation in assembly processes of a wingbox structure concentrating on the assembly of skin panels to rib feet. Finite element modelling and experimental tests are conducted on the rib structure based on the site measurement gathered from the Airbus assembly factory. The results have shown that the simulated model has the capability of predicting to an acceptable degree of accuracy the overall geometrical variations of the ribs and skin panels, as well as the positional variations of each individual rib foot. The authors believe that no previous research has offered a similar prediction method for large aerostructures.
Prediction of geometrical variations in Airbus wingbox assembly
Prädiktion geometrischer Veränderungen in der Airbus-Flügelkastenmontage
Assembly Automation ; 27 , 4 ; 324-332
2007
9 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 22 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
Modelling and analysis of Airbus wingbox assembly
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