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Assembly error propagation modeling and coordination error chain construction for aircraft

Feiyan Guo (AVIC Manufacturing Technology Institute, Beijing, China)
Fang Zou (AVIC Manufacturing Technology Institute, Beijing, China)
Jian Hua Liu (Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China)
Qingdong Xiao (AVIC Manufacturing Technology Institute, Beijing, China)
Zhongqi Wang (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Shaanxi Sheng, China)

Assembly Automation

ISSN: 0144-5154

Article publication date: 8 May 2019

Issue publication date: 3 June 2019

469

Abstract

Purpose

Manufacturing errors, which will propagate along the assembly process, are inevitable and difficult to analyze for complex products, such as aircraft. To realize the goal of precise assembly for an aircraft, with revealing the nonlinear transfer mechanism of assembly error, a set of analytical methods with response to the assembly error propagation process are developed. The purpose of this study is to solve the error problems by modeling and constructing the coordination dimension chain to control the consistency of accumulated assembly errors for different assemblies.

Design/methodology/approach

First, with the modeling of basic error sources, mutual interaction relationship of matting error and deformation error is analyzed, and influence matrix is formed. Second, by defining coordination datum transformation process, practical establishing error of assembly coordinate system is studied, and the position of assembly features is modified with actual relocation error considering datum changing. Third, considering the progressive assembly process, error propagation for a single assembly station and multi assembly stations is precisely modeled to gain coordination error chain for different assemblies, and the final coordination error is optimized by controlling the direction and value of accumulated error range.

Findings

Based on the proposed methodology, coordination error chain, which has a direct influence on the property of stealthy and reliability for modern aircrafts, is successfully constructed for the assembly work of the jointing between leading edge flap component and wing component at different assembly stations.

Originality/value

Precise assembly work at different assembly stations is completed to verify methodology’s feasibility. With analyzing the main comprised error items and some optimized solutions, benefit results for the practical engineering application showing that the maximum value of the practical flush of the profiles between the two components is only 0.681 mm, the minimum value is only 0.021 mm, and the average flush of the entire wing component is 0.358 mm, which are in accordance with theoretical calculation results and can successfully fit the assembly requirement. The potential user can be the engineers for manufacturing the complex products.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51805502), Aeronautical Science Foundation of China (No. 2017ZE25005), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018M631706) and National Defense Industrial Technology Development Program of China (Grant No. JCKY2016205A001). They would also like to thank the editors and the anonymous referees for their insightful comments.

Citation

Guo, F., Zou, F., Liu, J.H., Xiao, Q. and Wang, Z. (2019), "Assembly error propagation modeling and coordination error chain construction for aircraft", Assembly Automation, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 308-322. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-07-2018-100

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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