Rotary Drive Fluid-Flow Interlock for Accurate Drilling Assembly
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Solution Overview
Problem
Manual assembly of components with threaded fasteners in hard-to-reach locations is challenging, especially when drilling and torquing at angles, and tracking drilled holes and installed fasteners becomes difficult as the number of fasteners increases.
Innovation Solution
A system with a rotary drive and fluid flow sensor that enables operation only after a predetermined fluid flow duration, ensuring successful drilling and preventing operation if flow is absent, combined with RFID location identifiers to prevent duplication and ensure ordered operations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual drilling and torquing methods are used in hard-to-reach locations, then worker flexibility is maintained, but operation difficulty and time consumption increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces manual mechanical operations with an automated drilling and torquing system that uses RFID technology for location identification and a controller for automated operation sequencing. The system automatically identifies work locations via RFID tags, tracks drilling status, and sequences torquing operations without manual intervention, thereby reducing both operation difficulty and time consumption.
2Reliability
If the number of fasteners to be installed increases, then assembly completeness improves, but tracking drilled holes and torqued fasteners becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where RFID sensors automatically detect and report the status of each work location (drilled or not drilled). The controller receives this feedback and uses it to determine the next appropriate operation, ensuring that all required fasteners are installed and torqued without manual tracking, thereby maintaining high reliability even as the number of fasteners increases.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses RFID tags as digital copies or representations of each physical work location. Instead of manually tracking physical holes and fasteners, the system creates and manages a digital map of work locations through RFID identification, making tracking simpler and more reliable as the number of locations increases.
3Productivity
If continuous operation of rotary drive is allowed, then productivity increases, but risk of duplicate drilling or missed operations increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary identification of all work locations using RFID tags before drilling begins. The controller creates a planned sequence of operations based on this preliminary information, ensuring that each location is drilled and torqued exactly once in the correct sequence, thereby maintaining both high productivity and high reliability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Facilitates efficient and accurate drilling and torquing of fasteners in hard-to-reach locations by ensuring successful tool operations and preventing errors through fluid flow monitoring and RFID tracking, enhancing assembly precision and efficiency.
Implementation Method 1
a sensor in communication with the path, wherein the sensor generates a signal responsive to the flow of the fluid
Data Source
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AI summary
A system (500) for processing a workpiece, including a rotary drive (502) having a path along which a flow of a fluid is established during operation, a sensor (518) in communication with the path, to generate a signal responsive to the flow of the fluid and not to generate the signal responsive to an absence of the flow, and a controller (400) communicatively coupled to the sensor to enable the operation of the rotary drive subsequent to a termination of the signal if a duration interval thereof is greater than or equal to a predetermined value, and to prevent the operation if the duration interval of the signal is less than the predetermined value. The rotary drive may include a drill.