Digital assembly process design for aircraft systems

Abstract

The research described in this thesis concentrates on the development of an integrated assembly process design for aircraft systems. Assembly process design is one of the most important and complicated activities in aircraft manufacturing. Many solutions are suggested in previous research to develop process design method. But gaps are found in assembly process design of aircraft system in following studies. In this research, an integration approach which combined with product development philosophy, design for assembly method and digital assembly technology is proposed to solve the issues in the whole product development lifecycle. Three case studies from different design phase are used to examine the integrated process design method. The research results demonstrate that the proposed digital process design method can be used to develop manufacturing strategies of system assembly in early design phase, and improve the accuracy and operability of assembly instructions according to 3-D assembly process plans in detailed design phase. The product design also benefits from this method in terms of correcting design errors in the concurrent engineering process. A proposed process planning system framework based on lightweight CAD is developed in this research. The customized assembly representation of 3DVIA system illustrates the advantages of lightweight CAD when applying in shop floor.