Half-Barrel Fuselage Contour Enforcement for Faster Assembly Flow
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current aircraft fuselage fabrication processes face delays due to uneven work rates among components, requiring methods to enforce and maintain desired contours during assembly, especially for half barrel sections, to enhance production efficiency and reduce bottlenecks.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize stationary arches to enforce a desired cross-sectional contour on half barrel sections by extending wheels to contact the inner and outer mold lines, allowing for precise contour enforcement and enabling work to proceed while maintaining the desired shape, including the use of non-destructive inspection to adjust the contour as needed.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If heavy tooling is utilized to maintain desired loft/contour at the cell, then the contour accuracy is improved, but the production system is delayed until the full barrel section is advanced to the next cell
Solution Approach 1:
The invention divides the fuselage into multiple half barrel sections that can be assembled and enforced independently rather than requiring the entire barrel section to be complete before contour enforcement. This segmentation allows parallel processing and eliminates the bottleneck where the entire production system must wait for one section to finish.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies contour enforcement to half barrel sections before they are fully assembled into the complete barrel section. By performing contour enforcement on individual half barrel sections in advance, the system ensures that each component is pre-shaped correctly, allowing faster overall assembly without compromising final contour accuracy.
2Manufacturing precision
If the entire section remains at the cell until all delayed work is completed, then the contour can be maintained, but the entire production system is delayed
Solution Approach 1:
The invention separates the fuselage assembly into independent half barrel sections that can be processed separately. Each half barrel section can be removed from the cell and transported to the next station independently, allowing work to continue on other sections rather than halting the entire production line.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention performs contour enforcement on half barrel sections before they leave the cell. By completing the contour enforcement operation in advance while the section is still at the cell, the section can be quickly transported to the next station without waiting for the entire barrel assembly to be complete.
3Manufacturing precision
If stationary arches are used to enforce contour on half barrel sections, then contour accuracy is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses simple arch structures that enforce contour on individual half barrel sections rather than requiring a complex full-barrel assembly fixture. Each arch is a relatively simple component that can be independently positioned and adjusted, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining enforcement accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The stationary arches serve as intermediary devices that temporarily enforce contour on half barrel sections during assembly. These arches act as mediators between the half barrel sections and the final barrel assembly, providing the necessary shape control without requiring the entire assembly system to be complex.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 1A
Figure 2
AI summary
Systems and methods are provided for assembling a section of a fuselage (12) of an aircraft (10). The method includes pulsing a half barrel section (24) of the fuselage (12) along a track (110) in a process direction (199), utilizing an indexing feature (124) associated with the half barrel section (24) to determine a desired contour (361) for a portion of the half barrel section (24), and enforcing the desired contour (361) onto the half barrel section (24) using components that enforce an inner mold line (128) and components that enforce an outer mold line (126) when the contour of the half barrel section (24) is out of tolerance from the desired contour (361).