Highly Efficient Selective Assembly Method of Horizontal Stabilizer based on Metamodeling and Particle Swarm Optimization
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 28, Issue 4
Abstract
Selective assembly is a cost-effective approach for reducing the overall variation and thus improving the quality of an assembled product. Traditional selective assembly requires quite a large number of finite-element analysis (FEA) runs and consequently is rather time consuming when considering every part’s deviations. The paper presents the highly efficient selective assembly method that assists operators in horizontal stabilizer assembling while considering the parts’ fabrication deviations. Metamodeling is employed to build the input–output functions from FEA results. The hybrid metamodel consisted of four metamodels and is constructed to express the mapping relationship between fabrication deviations and assembly distortions. Cross validation of metamodels is conducted using 27 FEA simulations. The quantitative selective assembly suggestion, that is, the selective assembly table, is obtained using the hybrid metamodels and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The optimal assembly of the trailing edge is considered to illustrate the computational efficiency of the method. The results have shown that the proposed method preserve final assembly precision with high efficiency. The selective assembly procedures outlined in this paper will enhance the understanding of the compliant components deformation in assembly and help systematically improving the precision control efficiency in the civil aircraft industry.
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Acknowledgments
In this paper, several graphics are shown in order to explain our method, but they are not needed for making practical computation. This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51275308), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No.2010CB731703), and Fund of National Engineering and Research Center for Commercial Aircraft Manufacturing, China (The project No. is SAMC13-JS-15-025). The author is also grateful to Mr. Xin Ding, who conducted the FEA and provided some data in the paper.
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Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 4 • July 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 26, 2013
Accepted: Mar 27, 2014
Published online: Jul 28, 2014
Discussion open until: Dec 28, 2014
Published in print: Jul 1, 2015
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