A riveting need: German engineers trial gun with a difference, that incorporates automatic 3D quality checking technology to make safety process even faster

摘要

AIRCRAFT - particularly passenger planes - use increasingly advanced technologies, but they are largely held together by good old rivets. Hundreds of thousands of them. Checking the integrity of a riveted joint is crucial, and is still generally a manual operation. Now, however, Airbus Deutschland is working with the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation to incorporate automatic rivet checking into the riveting operation itself. To check a rivet, test engineers look at the rivet head to make sure it isn't scratched, and run their thumb over the joint to check how far each rivet protrudes from the surface. Particularly critical joints are checked using a dial gauge.