After two and half years of development Messier-Dowty is to introduce robotic surface finishing for its landing gear outer fittings at its Mirabel, Quebec plant.
Manual surface finishing of an outer fitting using a polishing process presents challenges for repeatability and worker health and safety. Using robots is expected to provide higher quality control and eliminate related health conditions in workers.
The manufacturing engineering project using a C$300,000 ($291,000) robot cell, involved the National Research Council Canada for about 18 months.
The NRC provided its expertise and facilities free of charge and Messier-Dowty purchased the operational cell from the NRC once the capability was proven.
"We are all ready to go for production in September," says Jean Blondin, Messier-Dowty's Mirabel site general manager and vice-president production. He will not disclose the cost of the research, but admits it was in the order of C$2 million, the maximum spent on individual NRC projects.
With four such robot cells polishing a landing-gear part each and being operated by one worker, the process eliminates three to seven workers, assuming some parts required two people to polish.
Future research could include changes to the landing gear, according to Blondin, including designing them for manufacture in a way that sees the gear piston's inner and outer cylinders produced in two parts and then friction-welded together.
Source: Flight International
