Quality control: New CMMs confirm the overall dimensional accuracy of the latest Aston Martin

摘要

The body of the Aston Martin DB9 GT sports car, which was launched in September last year at the Frankfurt Motor Show, has an aluminium bonded frame that is 25% lighter than that of the DB7 yet has twice the torsional rigidity. To check the quality of this structure before the car is hand-built around it, a new metrology facility has been established at the company's recently opened factory at Gaydon, Warwickshire. Central to the operation of this facility is a pair of LK computer-controlled LY90S horizontal-arm co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs), for inspecting external features on both sides of the vehicle simultaneously, using automatic mirror-image inspection cycles that take around 2hr. Together, the two CMMs - supplied by LK Ltd, Castle Donington (Tel: 01332 811349) - provide a measuring volume of 6,000 × 3,000 × 2,500mm. This is sufficient to contain the whole vehicle, which is held in 'car line' by bespoke fixturing. The results achieved are to better than 10μm over the length of the car. A further key feature of the installation is the use of LK's Camio interface software.