Airbus has developed a new fully-automated technology for drilling rivet holes, combining an articulated robot system with a magnetically-levitated drill spindle.
As a backgrounder, the drilling of rivet holes is a vital component of airplane manufacture. As materials are drilled, shards can become lodged in the drill bit flutes, causing wear and tear.
A build-up of this kind of debris often requires frequent tool changes, which when added up, result in costly delays in the manufacturing process. Additionally, imperfect precision of semi-automated and manual processes causes occasional inconsistencies in hole diameters and material damage.
Fragments created by a traditional vertically-moving static drill bit are much larger than those caused by the Airbus’ new vibrating spindle. The expected introduction of this new method in production of wing flaps on A330s and A350 XWBs by year-end could be a game-changer, as Airbus’ new, fully-automated electrical vibration drilling alleviates many of these problems.
Using a super imposed oscillation pattern to move the drill bit in and out of the material several times in each rotation, the newly developed spindle fractures drilled material into smaller pieces that can be extracted without residue.
This process creates significantly lower temperatures, leading to a reduction in burr formation around the holes and a less wear and tear to the tool.
The new technology also boasts a processing time up to fifty percent shorter for thick packages with titanium.
A demonstrator of Airbus’ newly developed vibrating spindle is set to be installed at the company’s Bremen facility in Germany later this year.
With this new technology announcement following hot on the heels of the unveiling of their enhanced center wing box design earlier this month, Airbus is not falling short of exciting developments.