Technical Papers & Journals

Case Study of a Fuselage Join Automation

Volume 16, Issue 1

Rob Flynn, Nathan McRae, and Spencer Thompson, Electroimpact

A large jet fuselage consists of forward, center, and aft sections which must be joined together. The join process calls for a rough move to a “stage” position, automated measurements, and calculation of a transformation matrix to yield a move to an accurate “pre-join” position from which the manual join process is started. After the manual join is complete the fuselage sections are measured again, and the final locations recorded. Because the process of measurement, transformation calculation, and data transfer to the programmable logic computer (PLC) is an involved series of events, the customer chose to automate it and thereby ensure a repeatable and reliable result. In this article we examine the solution, look at some of the challenges faced, review the results, and consider some lessons learned.

Simple Methods for Dynamically Testing Laser Trackers in the Field

David H. Parker

Laser trackers are typically evaluated under the ASME B89.4.19 standard using artifact standards under static conditions. Due to the requirements of the artifact standards, evaluations are typically beyond the capabilities of most laser tracker owners and...

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: CMM Verification of Low Pressure Turbine Blisk under Spin Testing of a Small Turbofan Engine

Suneel Kumar, Marakandeya V, MuralidharanV, Sreelal Sreedhar

Spin testing testing of the integrated bladed rotors or blisks is being increasingly used for the better understanding and validation of life and integrity. The test is carried out in various steps and goes thorough rigorous monitoring and inspection...

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: Case Study of a Fuselage Join Automation

Rob Flynn, Nathan McRae, and Spencer Thompson

A large jet fuselage consists of forward, center and aft sections which must be joined together.  The join process calls for a rough move to a “stage” position, automated measurements, and calculation of a transformation matrix to yield a move to...

Beyond Best-Fit, Spatial Compensation of Metrology Data

Edward West, Christopher Jamieson, Garrett Kelley

Current digital compensation techniques for uncontrolled boundary conditions such as profile at station lines and profile-per-unit-length (PPUL) fall short of accurately characterizing deformed flexible structures. Janicki Industries has developed Spatial...

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: Magnet Fiducialization for the Advanced Photon Source Upgrade Project

W. Jansma, C. Doose, S. Izzo, A. Jain

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: From High-resolution Imaging to High-precision Metrology with 3D X-ray Microscopes

Naomi Kotwal, Herminso V. Gómez, et al.

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: Beyond Best-Fit Spatial Compensation of Metrology Data

Edward West, Chris Jamieson, Garrett Kelley

Technological progress over the last decade has allowed metrology professionals to efficiently collect accurate and comprehensive datasets on large complex structures. With contemporary software, analysts distill meaningful results with unprecedented...

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: Advancing New Energy Vehicle Component Quality With Various CMM Applications

David Wick

Every traditional and many emerging automotive OEMs have announced new electric powered production vehicles for sale in the next 24 months. While the powertrain architecture differs by OEM, the range, performance and cost of every electric vehicle is...

2020 CMSC PRESENTATION: An investigation into a large antenna measuring system based on total station and vision guidance

Zili Zhang

The deformation measurement and monitoring of large-scale antenna is very important for antenna users as well as manufacturers. This paper proposed a large antenna measuring method based on total station and vision guidance. Firstly, an automatic measuring...