I highly doubt that the finale assembly of the aircraft is completely autonomous. While feasible from a technical standpoint, it is not economical to use robots when production number is just 100-150 airframes a year.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Conventional method of forging and casting and machining is faster if the shape is simple and material is easy to handle. But for complicated shape like one-piece bulkhead of hard material like Titanium 3d printing is faster.
Here is an article of additive fabrication application in aircraft building. Second author Wang Xiangming is from BUAA who is known worked with SAC.
Wang Xiangming stated (also in a separate internal lecture) that it takes totally half year to build F-22's bulkhead, casting -> Hot Isostatic Pressing -> welding -> milling. In contrast, it takes 55 days to make the titanium windshield frame for C-919, since the process is the same, a titanium buldhead would take about the same time, that is 1/3 of time. Worth to note that 3d printing saves time from forging/casting/pressing/welding but not milling which is equally used in either process.
SAC also used 3D printing on aluminium one piece fuselage frame and wing spars. SAC stated 10 times of production efficiency, likely 1/10 time compared to traditional method. I guess that the further time saving is because aluminium is easy to mill than titanium.
Section stating half year of F-22's bulkhead.
C-919 windshield frame in its final form after milling and polished. C-919's 3d printing work is from NWPU.
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yes agreed. I mean when we look at the final assemble lines of various Chinese aircraft from recent times, it seems like you still need a lot of workers for that. Even if it's production number get to 100, which is actually a really large number. Realistically speaking, J-20 production itself likely had to get a lot more automated with intelligent AGVs moving heavy parts around.
J20A Way 2 Sexy
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Oh this thing is LOVELY.
100% what I thought too (based quote choice btw):
If there were no flight demonstrations of the J20A fighter equipped with the WS15 engine at this year's Zhuhai Airshow, then how likely is it that the relevant data of the WS15 engine would be publicly displayed at this year's Zhuhai Airshow?
It seems that official data on the WS-10 engine was already available at the Zhuhai Airshow in 2006, but at that time, the reliability of the WS-10 was still relatively poor.
It seems that official data on the WS-10 engine was already available at the Zhuhai Airshow in 2006, but at that time, the reliability of the WS-10 was still relatively poor.
I hadn't realised this but it turns out the J-20A/S, for some reason, stopped serrating the trailing edge of the canards?
