Stringer/clip placement and drilling

Details Stringer/clip placement and drilling Stringer/clip placement and drilling

1994-04-04

1995-12-26

Briggs, William

Metal working

Plural diverse manufacturing apparatus including means for...

Binding or covering and cutting

29 26A, 292815, 29558, 29703, B23P 2100, B23B 4100

Patent

active

054775965

ABSTRACT:
A machine for positioning clips in channel-shaped airplane fuselage stringers, and drilling holes in the stringers and clips, includes an elongated beam support having a box beam supported on five floor engaging legs and supporting a carriage assembly positioned on said beam and supported on bearings traveling along rails on the beam for longitudinal movement therealong. A motive mechanism, including a servomotor in the carriage and driving a pinion engaged with a rack fastened to the beam moves carriage longitudinally along the beam. An index mechanism including a fixed end stop at a known position indexes a stringer on the beam at a fixed reference position thereon. The stringer is centered under a drill by a centering mechanism mounted on the carriage, and a drill system drills a series of vertical holes along the channel floor of the stringer at locations specified in a digital product definition of said part. A multiplicity of clips is held in a clip cartrige for feeding the clips in order to a gripper for gripping, moving and placing a series of clips in the stringer channel and holding the clips in a specified position while they are drilled by two opposed drills disposed on a horizontal axis orthogonal to the stringer axis for drilling through side walls of the stringer and the clip positioned in said stringer. A pads positioner mounted for lateral movement toward and away from the axis of the stringer receives the clip cartrige and positions clips from the cartrige at a specified position to be gripped and picked up by the gripper. A position feedback and control system receives product definition information from a central product definition repository and translates the product definition information into machine instructions for moving elements of the machine to correct positions for drilling holes in the stringer and stringer clip to match corresponding holes drilled in airplane fuselage panels and frames to enable the parts to be positioned accurately with respect to each other without use of hard tooling.

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