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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications
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Catalog excerpts

Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 1

GapmanGen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications For years aircraft assembly and structural component manufacturers have been using traditional contact methods (plastic shims, feeler gauges, step gauges etc.) to measure gaps during the production and final assembly of commercial and military aircraft. Hundreds of gaps between metal/metal, metal/Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) and CFRP/CFRP surfaces must be measured and controlled during the production to determine whether liquid or solid shimming is required. These gaps can be found in a wide variety of applications located throughout the aircraft structure from the front passenger doors to the vertical stabilizer. (see Figure 1 for typical applications) Figure 1: Typical Aircraft gap measurement locations

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 2

Process control improvement drives new gap measurement techniques Due to the increased standardization of process improvement methods such as SPC and Six Sigma, aircraft structural component manufacturers from Alenia to Lockheed are adjusting output specifications from their measurement instrument suppliers. The new standards require the measurement, data capture and documentation of an ever increasing number of physical measurements such as gaps, holes and parallelism in their manufacturing and assembly processes. Traditional gap measurement methods such as feeler gauges and plastic shims...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 3

Figure 2: Photo of Gapman Gen3 with remote spring contact wand Development of the Capacitec GapmanGen3 Capacitec specializes in capacitance measurement which is the core technology used exclusively in their line of non-contact displacement, gap, hole and parallelism sensors and sensor systems. Principle of Operation Capacitive reactance is proportional to the distance between the sensor and the target while the physical principle used to make distance measurements is based on the variation of capacitance between the sensor and its target. See Figure 3 Figure 3: Capacitive technology

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 4

Aircraft structure gaps are measured with two capacitive displacement sensors mounted back-to-back at the end of a flat wand. Each sensor has a central sensing element with a typical diameter of between 2 to 5 mm (0.079” to 0.197”) depending upon the gap range required. The larger the sensor diameters, the larger the linear range of the gap sensor wand. A ring guard layer surrounds both sensors that serve to focus the capacitive charge field to a grounded target. Each sensor has a 100% shielded coaxial cable. When positioned parallel to an earth grounded or conductive target, the sensor...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 5

The resulting Capacitec design consisted of the two aforementioned capacitive non-contact displacement sensors installed on mating opposite sides of a metal sabre and calibrated to two custom capacitive amplifiers. After the fuel bundles were assembled, these semi-flexible half-meter long gap measurement sabres were automatically inserted between rows of 16 fuel rods at several locations along the 6-meter height of the fuel bundle. Based on the success of this new design’s reliability, repeatability, high accuracy and durability the Capacitec noncontact gap measurement system is now the...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 6

These flexible Kapton® gap sensor wands were further adapted to operate with the Gapman to meet the requirement of accurately and automatically measuring gaps in aircraft structures. Self grounded semi-rigid contact sabres Self-grounded semi-rigid contact sabres were designed in response to GE PowerGen request to develop a better way to measure gaps between the fan blades in a Gas Turbine and the exterior enclosure. Again feeler gages were the existing measurement method and did not meet Gauge R&R and Six Sigma documentation requirements. The particular challenge for Capacitec in this...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 7

Sensor Selection The capacitive gap sensor wand model selection is application driven and chosen in reference to the following factors: minimum gap, gap range, target material combinations (metal/metal. metal/CFRP, CFRP/CFRP), difficulty of access to target etc. There are dozens of standard models of both flexible wands and spring contact sabres along with the option of developing custom models according to customer needs. Flexible wands Kapton® flexible wands are typically used to measure the thinnest gaps and where the flexibility of the wand improves accessibility to the target. The...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 8

Self grounded spring contact wands Spring contact wands are typically used in applications where: one or both targets are non conductive; a target size is < 2mm or the surface or shape of the target is irregular. These are also the most popular choice for CFRP/CFRP applications where the minimum gap is >0.64 mm (0.025”). The Spring Contact wand Model GPD-5 (0.22)-A-150 has a range of 0.64 mm (0.025”) to 3.0 mm (0.118”) while the range of the GPD-10 (.034)-A-350 is 0.86 mm (0.034”) to 10.0 mm (0.394”) Spring Contact Wand GPD-5(0.22)-A 150 Spring Contact Wand GPD-10(0.34)-A-350 Size: 14 mm x...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 9

From GapmanGen1 (analog) to Gapman Gen2 (digital) to Gapman Gen3 (serial/wireless) Figure 11: Gapman Generations 1 to 3 Gapman Gen2 The Gapman Gen2 model was introduced with flexible wands in 1996. The remote vs. integral configuration and availability of spring contact wands were introduced later. Today most commercial and military aircraft manufacturers world wide use the Capacitec Gapman Gen2 to measure and control gaps that typically range from 0.20 mm – 3.0 mm (0.0078” - 0.118”). In the assembly of tail sections, a Gapman Gen2 with flexible wand is used to measure gaps 20 cm (7.87”)...

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Gapman?Gen3 Electronic Gap Measurement System for Aircraft Applications - 10

The self-grounded spring contact saber is often used to measure gaps between targets where on or both sides is composed of CRFP. In another application example gap readings from the Gapman Gen2 are sent to a CNC machine, which manufactures custom shims that fit perfectly in the void between two structural components of the aircraft. Gapman Gen3 The Gapman® Gen3 was introduced in late 2010. Among the main design enhancements of the "next generation" Gapman® Gen3 are higher resolution output (0.00001"/ 0.254 µm) with ±0.05% FS (12.7 µm) typical accuracy with a GPD-5F wand; 10,000+ data point...

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