INNOVATIVE BRACKET DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR THE INSTALLATION OF AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS DOI 10.5028/jatm.2012.04030912

Abstract

Following continually varying customer specific demands across the globe, aircraft design strategy is constantly changing. The manufacturers are focusing on finding ways to make the products more flexible thus meeting the several product variants with controlled manufacturing costs. Herein, the flexibility addresses the variety of needs with less product combinations through standardization/interchangeability while meeting all the requirements. Nowadays, the industry has also realized that the cost reduction has been one of the key driving factors to keep in the free-market competition. Therefore, it is imperative to find innovation methods across the manufacturing cycle of the aircraft keeping a close watch on cost control. The scope of innovation is extended to all areas of design encompassing its phases of all aircraft systems. The context of this paper is pertained to air conditioning and electrical systems, which are two areas where the routing of air ducts and electrical wires/cable bundles, respectively, need to be securely clamped to the structural elements. Brackets are extensively used for holding these ducts and cable bundles. It is found that, presently, several conventional clamping methods are used for holding the ducts and wire bundles individually. Hence, it is required to develop innovative brackets to hold combined both ducts and wire bundles wherever is possible. The new brackets impact potentially on weight and cost reduction in addition to substantial savings on assembly and maintenance time. The brackets thus designed have sufficient strength, low weight, and are easy to manufacture to be integrated with selected Air Transport Association systems. This paper aimed at describing the scope of the task, design requirements and best practices adopted while executing the project for an aerospace customer.