The Design for Manufacturing and Assembly Analysis and Redesign of an Aircraft Refueling Door Hinge Utilizing Additive Manufacturing

<p>In this thesis, an aircraft door hinge assembly provided by Gulfstream Aerospace was analyzed following an established process called DFMA. The hinge was then redesigned to be additively manufactured, which is uncommon currently in industry for load bearing components. It was shown that the Design for Manufacturing (DFM) guidelines were inadequate when applied to the new technology of additive manufacturing (AM). This was primarily due to AM's unique and unprecedented manufacturing capabilities.</p> <p>A conservative redesign approach was followed due to a limitation in current AM material properties and time available for analysis. Despite this, a significant improvement in weight reduction and part count was still achieved. The total weight of the hinge assembly was reduced approximately 22% and the number of parts reduced from six to two. This weight reduction is estimated to save $56,000 in fuel over the course of 6000 flight hours per hinge redesigned, totaling $112,000 per G650 aircraft. All design work and weight estimations were performed in CATIA V5.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - Open Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Year

2015

Author dc:creator

• Schwarz, Kurt A.

• aircraft
• refueling door
• additive manufacturing
• Aerospace Engineering
• Manufacturing
• Mechanical Engineering

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.erau.edu/edt/283

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.erau.edu:edt-1282