Fully automated sealant application for the industrial aircraft production

Description
Aircraft structures have to be protected to avoid corrosion on the joining areas and fastener heads, to prevent part delamination at the edges of composite structures or for instance to avoid leakages on the wing panels. As of today a two-component-material is applied by human to the respective areas. The manual work itself and the provisions to comply with the required H&S regulations and ergonomic standards are cost driving factors in the production. An automation offers here great benefit.
Turkish Aerospace and Broetje-Automation have introduced a new developed fully automated system which applies sealant beats on section panels of an aircraft.
The automation system consists of technology solutions to recognize part specifics, to compensate differences between design and reality, to prepare and to supply material as well as for the application on the part.
This paper will describe the challenges during the development and also motivation and subsequent activities for the introduction of a new automation in the production.

Author(s) - ranked in descending order of contribution / as it should appear when published
Emel Boyacıoğlu
Fatih Erdinç
Ingo Kramer
Nihat Biyiklioglu