A preliminary study of an alternative approach to airframe faying-surface sealing.

摘要

This paper presents the results of a preliminary study which addresses an alternative approach to the aerospace industry's currently employed practice of applying wet sealant to airframe faying surfaces. Specifically, this effort evaluates a new, more cost-effective, revolutionary approach for providing the corrosion protection and sealing characteristics required for faying surfaces.This project was established to evaluate and compare various factors of the existing wet-sealant process and the new, alternative sealing process. Resulting data confirmed that, by employing this new, patent-pending process to pre-coat the faying surfaces of the airframe's components, the need for the wet sealant and its costly application can be eliminated and replaced by the new process. Costs of quality analysis associated with the current process and potential quality improvements of the proposed process are developed and presented which demonstrate the cost savings anticipated with the implementation of the new process.