Robustness in aerospace components manufacturing and fabrication – a case study

Paper in proceeding, 2011

One approach to light weight designs of jet engine components is to fabricate structures instead of making large complex castings. This needs other methodology to design, plan and verify the joining processes and geometry dimensioning and tolerancing of the parts. This case study has used methods and tools for robust design developed for use in the automotive industry. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the methodology on jet engine components. With virtual geometry models, assembly modeling can be done based on locating schemes, describing the kinematics relations of the assembly. The effect of locator disturbances and part error on critical assembly dimensions can be analyzed with respect to three-dimensional effects. The locating schemes have also been evaluated through a measuring process analyzing the repeatability. The conclusion is that the Robust Design and Tolerancing methodology can be applied to the type of fixturing of joining needed for fabrication of parts in the case study and that great improvements can be made optimising the placement of reference points.