What's New at ACE
Hydraulic fittings
Shur-Lok Corp. will be showcasing its Sta-Lok line of ring-locked hydraulic fittings, or fluid adapters. Unlike heavier MS fittings that require a lock wire to prevent rotation, Sta-Lok fittings are held in place by a serrated lock ring. The fitting and lock ring are supplied as an assembly to simplify installation. Once the fitting is threaded into the port and torqued to provide proper sealing, the lock ring is driven into the standard pre-broached hole to prevent the fitting from turning. Sta-Lok fittings are designed for applications in fuel or fluid systems of aircraft, helicopters, and engines. The fittings are certified to operate in systems pressurized to 4000, 5000, or 8000 psi and are designed to exceed operating temperatures of -65 to +275°F.
Automated fatigue enhancement
StressWave has developed an automated fatigue enhancement technology designed to minimize the cost of improving the fatigue life of holes in metal structures. Fatigue life is improved through "cold working," in which beneficial residual compressive stresses are worked into the material before drilling. A proprietary indentation device, which can be easily integrated into an automated production environment, is used to create the residual stresses where the holes are desired. StressWave also has a series of end effector designs suitable for integration into most automated fastening and assembly devices. Tests in aluminum and titanium demonstrate a minimum life improvement of three times the life of an untreated hole.
Self-plugging blind rivet
The Cherry 100° flush head 3/32" SPR blind rivet from Textron Aerospace Fasteners is suitable for securing nut plates located in inaccessible and hard-to-reach areas where bucking or squeezing of solid rivets is not possible. Developed to replace solid and pull-through rivets in nonstructural applications, the unique product design allows a positive lock to be achieved without an additional lock ring component. The shear values for the SPR have been increased to 255 lb, which meets the conventional 3/32" AD, D, and DD solid-rivet shear values.
Support analysis tool
The Integrated Supportability Analysis and Cost System (ISACS) 4.0 from Technology Support Corp. is a detailed bottom-up operation and support model that provides users with modeling tools for accurately forecasting life cycle cost/total cost of ownership, cost of warranty, scheduled and unscheduled removal trends, logistic support requirements, maintenance cost, spares requirements, support equipment requirements, and labor/material requirements. The solution was designed to simulate a fleet of systems and indentured hardware, inspect for and detect failures, and perform maintenance actions. The software uses the concept of Weibull distribution to model part durability failures, which are based on time accumulation.
Crash sled systems
Seattle Safety has developed the Hyper-G crash sled system, which reproduces the complex accelerations from vehicle crash tests. Unlike other systems, the Hyper-G modulates pneumatic force with a servo-hydraulic friction brake, reducing hydraulic flows 1000x compared to other computer-controlled sleds. Lower flows result in faster, more linear responses, allowing 100% closed-loop pulse control.
