Feature based design for jigless assembly

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.