Numerical Approach for Detecting the Resonance Effects of Drilling during Assembly of Aircraft Structures

This paper is devoted to the development of a numerical approach that allows quick detection of the conditions favorable for the beginning of noticeable vibrations during drilling. The main novelty of the proposed approach lies in taking into account the deviations of the assembled compliant parts during non-stationary contact analysis by means of variation simulation. The approaches to stationary analysis of assembly quality are expanded and generalized for modeling such non-stationary effects as vibration and resonance. The numerical procedure is based on modeling the stress–strain state of the assembled structures by solving the corresponding transient contact problem. The use of Guyan reduction, the node-to-node contact model and the application of the generalized α method allow the reformulation of the contact problem in terms of a series of quadratic programming problems. The algorithm is thoroughly tested and validated with commercial software. The efficiency of the developed numerical procedure is illustrated by analysis of the test joints of two aircraft panels. The unsteady process of drilling the panels with periodic drilling force was simulated. The influence of deviations in the shape of the parts on the non-stationary interlayer gap was modeled by setting different initial gaps between parts. It is shown that the oscillation amplitudes of the interlayer gap depend on the initial gaps and do not correlate with the mean value of the stationary residual gap. Thus, non-stationary analysis provides new information about the quality of the assembly process, and it should be applied if the assembly process includes periodic impact on the assembled parts.

Optimal Design of Fixture Layout for Compliant Part With Application in Ship Curved Panel Assembly

In a ship assembly process, a large number of compliant parts are involved. The ratio of the part thickness to the length or the width is typically 0.001–0.012. Fixture design is a critical task in the ship assembly process due to its impact on the deformation and dimensional variation of the compliant parts. In current practice, fixtures are typically uniformly distributed under the part to be assembled, which is non-optimal, and large dimensional gaps may occur during assembly. This paper proposed a methodology for the optimal design of the fixture layout in the ship assembly process by systematically integrating direct stiffness method and simulated annealing algorithm, which aims to minimize dimensional gaps along the assembly interface to further improve the quality and efficiency of seam welding. The case study shows that the proposed method significantly reduced the dimensional gaps of the compliant curved panel parts in a ship assembly process.

Alveolar cells under mechanical stressed niche: critical contributors to pulmonary fibrosis

Pulmonary fibrosis arises from the repeated epithelial mild injuries and insufficient repair lead to over activation of fibroblasts and excessive deposition of extracellular matrix, which result in a mechanical stretched niche. However, increasing mechanical stress likely exists before the establishment of fibrosis since early micro injuries increase local vascular permeability and prompt cytoskeletal remodeling which alter cellular mechanical forces. It is noteworthy that COVID-19 patients with severe hypoxemia will receive mechanical ventilation as supportive treatment and subsequent pathology studies indicate lung fibrosis pattern. At advanced stages, mechanical stress originates mainly from the stiff matrix since boundaries between stiff and compliant parts of the tissue could generate mechanical stress. Therefore, mechanical stress has a significant role in the whole development process of pulmonary fibrosis. The alveoli are covered by abundant capillaries and function as the main gas exchange unit. Constantly subject to variety of damages, the alveolar epithelium injuries were recently recognized to play a vital role in the onset and development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In this review, we summarize the literature regarding the effects of mechanical stress on the fundamental cells constituting the alveoli in the process of pulmonary fibrosis, particularly on epithelial cells, capillary endothelial cells, fibroblasts, mast cells, macrophages and stem cells. Finally, we briefly review this issue from a more comprehensive perspective: the metabolic and epigenetic regulation.

Convex optimization techniques in compliant assembly simulation

A special class of quadratic programming (QP) problems is considered in this paper. This class emerges in simulation of assembly of large-scale compliant parts, which involves the formulation and solution of contact problems. The considered QP problems can have up to 20,000 unknowns, the Hessian matrix is fully populated and ill-conditioned, while the matrix of constraints is sparse. Variation analysis and optimization of assembly process usually require massive computations of QP problems with slightly different input data. The following optimization methods are adapted to account for the particular features of the assembly problem: an interior point method, an active-set method, a Newton projection method, and a pivotal algorithm for the linear complementarity problems. Equivalent formulations of the QP problem are proposed with the intent of them being more amenable to the considered methods. The methods are tested and results are compared for a number of aircraft assembly simulation problems.

Simulation of the Wing-to-Fuselage Assembly Process

The paper presents a simulation of the Airbus A350-900 wing-to-fuselage assembly process. The latter is a complex multistage process where the compliant parts are being joined by riveting. The current research analyzes the quality of the temporary fastener arrangement. The fastener arrangement is being checked to ensure that the residual gap between joined parts is small, and the fastener loads closing the gap are calculated. The deviations of the part shape from nominal are modeled via initial gaps. A cloud of initial gaps is generated based on the statistical analysis of the available measurements assuming the stochastic nature of local gap roughness. Through the reduction of the corresponding contact problem to a quadratic programming (QP) problem and the use of efficient QP algorithms together with the task-level parallelism, the mass contact problem solving on refined grids is accomplished.

Assembly Variation Analysis of Aircraft Panels under Part-to-part Locating Scheme

A typical aircraft panel is the assembly consisting of a multitude of thin and lightweight compliant parts. In panel assembly process, part-to-part locating scheme has been widely adopted in order to reduce fixtures. By this locating scheme, a part is located onto the pre-fixed part/subassembly by determinant assembly (DA) holes, and temporary fasteners (e.g., spring pin) are used for joining these DA hole-hole pairs. The temporary fasteners can fasten DA hole-hole pairs in the axial and radial directions of DA holes. The fastening in the radial directions is realized by the expansion of temporary fasteners. Although the usage of temporary fasteners helps reduce the positional differences between hole-hole pairs, their clamping forces thereby may lead to elastic deformation of compliant parts/subassemblies. Limited research has been conducted on such elastic deformation produced by temporary fastener and its influence on assembly dimensional quality. This paper proposes a novel rigid-compliant variation analysis method for aircraft panel assembly, incorporating the deformation in part-to-part locating process. Based on the kinematic theory and linear elasticity deformation assumption, the variation propagation through the locating process, as well as the entire assembly process of an aircraft panel, is formulated. Then, the statistical variation analysis is performed with Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. Finally, the proposed method is validated by a case study. The result shows the deformation in the part-to-part locating process significantly impacts the assembly variations, and our method can provide a more accurate and reliable prediction.

A study on energy transfer among limbs in a legged robot locomotion

Realizing adaptability to environmental changes requires the robot’s body to change according to the environment. From this perspective, several studies have considered variable compliant actuation to change the physical characteristics of the robot as it interacts with the environment. Robots with this ability show a variety of efficient stable motions during contact with the environment. However, having locally variable compliant parts with independent dynamics under the same body may be insufficient for achieving adaptability in diverse environments. To extend the idea of variable compliant actuation, from being used locally to the level of the entire body’s dynamics, in this study, we use an actuator network system (ANS). As an approximation of bipedal robots, we developed an eight-legged rimless wheel robot with an ANS that allows energy transfer among limbs through passive interactions among mutually interconnected air cylinders mounted on the robot’s legs. We experimentally demonstrated that by using the ANS to realize energy transfer among limbs, the robot performance improved.