New and Emerging X Technologies

Computer Aided Process Planning in Aircraft Manufacturing

Authors

Ramy Harik, William Derigent and Gabriel Ris


Journal

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 3(4), 319-334. 

Abstract

Aircraft structural parts make around 1% of the total aircraft components. At present, the production cycle of several components families is within the range of few hours. Conversely, the production of structural parts is mainly a human-made operation with manufacturing complexity increasing with the part’s morphology. The delicate thin elements and the presence of complex surfaces – mainly ruled surfaces which acquires the external aircraft body shape – sets the production time of mechanical structural parts ranging from few hours (for basic parts) up to over 20 days (for complex parts). The main loss of time is identified in the process planning field. This paper presents at first a review of the production numerical chain, and then offers a review of existing Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) software and their points of failures. We follow with the presentation of the USIQUICK project and the resulting CAPP software functions and prototype. We conclude the paper with a review of the main results setting the domain of our current and future research.

Keywords

CAD/CAM, CAPP, process planning, numerical chain, aircraft structural parts

Citation

Ramy Harik, Vincent Capponi, William Derigent, & Muriel Lombard. (January 2008). Computer-Aided Process Planning Support Functions. International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 3(4), 319-334. doi:https://doi.org/10.1504/IJPLM.2008.027009.

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236970957


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