VADIS

VADIS: Variance Aware Determinate Assembly Integrated Systems

Determinate assembly of aerostructures has significant potential to reduce production costs and lead times. Full-size holes and interface profiles are machined to final definition at the component manufacturing stage and then the components can be bolted together at assembly, removing several time-consuming assembly operations.

To exploit this methodology, very high component manufacturing tolerances are required in order to achieve the assembly key characteristics e.g., hole fit, component position, and steps and gaps. VADIS addresses this challenge by introducing high accuracy large volume measurement of the finished wing skins to then update the product digital twin and generate machining definition of the interfacing components ready for final assembly.

PROJECT PARTNERS

FUNDING

Clean Sky 2

Project Ref: H2020-CS2-CFP03-2016-01-38221

DELIVERABLES

Flexible determinate assembly methodology for measurement-assisted assembly of aircraft wing boxes based on: reverse engineering, tolerance analysis, intelligent process adaption and variation-aware processes and tooling.
Prototype system and on-site demonstration at the partner site.

KEY INNOVATIONS

High accuracy, large volume metrology methodology for wing skin measurement.
Automated data analysis and optimisation to match measurement data sets.
Methodology for uncertainty analysis and development of datum flow chains to optimise geometrical tolerances.
Adaptive tooling for wing skin measurement and wing box assembly.