An A380 wing panel is being assembled on this automated line using Electroimpact E4380 automatic drilling and insertion systems for permanent fastener installation. The machines clamp the skin and stringer together, drill holes, insert and form aluminum rivets. They also drill and coldwork holes and then insert titanium pins or lockbolts.
The lightning strike issue isn't about frequency so much as it is about catastrophic results. If you've only got a (for example) 1% chance of something happening, but that something has catastrophic results--people dying, lawsuits--then that's something you've got to protect against, or at least not encourage, in your materials and assembly process selection.
I never thought that lightening strikes on aircraft was so common. I read that it happens 2 times per year on average, per airplane. I have seen electrical discharge responsible for fastener loosening and in some cases, ejecting.
There is a downside to composite pieces, price. Bolting parts together will always be around. I designed a mechanical system that ended up having over 60 bolts.. it was cheaper than with none, that was for sure.
Glad you liked the article. The whole issue of the grounding of composites used in aircraft has been widely misunderstood, so I thought it was a good idea to include some clear discussion on that issue. Could you clarify your question about comparisons between fasteners for composites and fasteners for metal? What sort of comparisons do you have in mind?
Excellent post Ann. I know the longevity of any fastener is dependent upon the application and use. Relative to composite fasteners, do we know how they "stack up" relative to metal fasteners? I have seen no data that tries to correlate life cycles of either type. Great point also about the grounding of composites. I know this must be a huge issue but not talked about too much in the literature.
That's true of course. The question is, given an increase in composite use, whether fasteners will be used in high enough quantities in repair to make up for the lower overall quantities in manufacturing.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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