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The work presented in this thesis was undertaken as part of the three-year ‘Jigless
Aerospace Manufacture’ (JAM) project which was set-up to investigate and address the
significant scientific, technological and economic issues to enable a new design,
manufacture and assembly philosophy based on minimising product specific jigs,
fixtures and tooling.
The main goal of the JAM project at Cranfield was the development of
appropriate jigless methods and principles, and the subsequent redesign of the JAM
project demonstrator structure – a section of the Airbus A320 aircraft Fixed Leading
Edge – to fully investigate and realise the capabilities of jigless methodologies and
principles.
The particular focus of research activity described in this thesis was the
development of a methodology to design for jigless assembly and a process of selecting
assembly features to enable jigless assembly.
A review of the literature has shown that no methodologies exist to specifically
design for jigless assembly; however, previous relevant research has been built upon
and extended with the incorporation of novel tools and techniques.
To facilitate the assembly feature selection process for jigless assembly, an
Assembly Feature Library was created that broadened and expanded the conventional
definition and use of assembly features.
The developed methodology, assembly feature selection process and Feature
Library have been applied and validated on the JAM project demonstrator structure to
serve as a Case Study for the tools and techniques developed by the research.
Additionally, a Costing Analysis was carried out which suggests that the use of
the tools and techniques to enable jigless assembly could have a large and considerable
impact on both the Non-Recurring and Recurring costs associated with the design,
manufacture and assembly of aircraft. |
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