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Technology update
Rolling ahead
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Specialist French company Jammes Industrie has delivered the largest rolling machine it has ever built. It will roll the central part of the fuselage of the Airbus A340-600. The fuselage is made up of several aluminum segments approximately 33 ft long and approximately 0.5 in thick. The new machine, which weighs 70 t, is capable of rolling fuselage, wing leading edges, horizontal stabilizer leading edges, and tail cones. Each part rolled may measure between 6 ft and 40 ft, with a variety of radiuses. The machine can exert 300 t of force.
According to the company, the system compensates for any bending of the rolls via several motorized sloping blocks, which maintain the parallelism of the rolls along the whole length. Design to delivery time for the new rolling machine was eight months. It joins a range of metal rolling machines including the Rollexpress (300 parts/hr), Rollstar (600 parts/hr), and the JO production line to roll and weld metal (300 parts/hr).
Stuart Birch
Aerospace Engineering March 2000
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