Integrated Smart Assembly Factory

The ISAF (Integrated Smart Assembly Factory) project was born from the need to solve the problem of empty spaces that are created in the assembly of large structural parts in composite material, a natural consequence of the manufacturing tolerances peculiar to this type of material and components.
When coupling carboresin parts, it may happen that empty spaces are created between adjacent structures. To date, the solution to fill these spaces is to apply fillers made of different polymeric materials (reinforced or not), called "fasteners", adequately prepared based on the location and dimensional measurements to assemble the different structural components. However, the use of fasteners, if on the one hand it compresses and would tend to eliminate empty spaces, on the other hand induces tensions that reduce the resistance to acting loads. The use of shims (compensations or shims) adapted in situ reduces the efficiency in terms of quality, time and cost of the assembly which is currently essentially manual. Furthermore, the large number of possible combinations makes automation extremely difficult, further increasing costs.