Design for Measurement Assisted Determinate Assembly (MADA) of Large Composite Structures

Abstract

Aerospace assembly, as this talk opens, combines the inefficiency of craft production with the inflexibility of early mass production. Measurement assisted determinate assembly is offered as the way out, letting large composite structures be located by measurement rather than by hard tooling – which in turn permits relaxed part tolerances, because the assembly no longer depends on every interface being right. Muelaner and Maropoulos argue that this only works if it is designed in from the start, and set out the principles of Design for MADA, beginning from the assumption that full interchangeability is not feasible across assemblies of that size.