A clearance control and interference repair method for ship rib plate assembly based on reverse engineering

Due to the influence of manufacturing errors, welding deformation of ship parts and other factors, interference often occurs due to out-of-tolerance assembly clearance for ship rib plate assembly using the pull-in method. To solve the problem, a clearance control and interference repair method for ship rib plate assembly is proposed. Firstly, the factors causing ship rib assembly errors were analyzed, and an accurate model of the ship rib with manufacturing errors was built based on a 3D scanning point cloud. Secondly, the fit clearances between multiple components during the motion process were calculated based on simulation. Finally, the assembly clearances were redistributed through pose coordination technology to autonomously control the assembly clearance, allocate excess clearances to interference areas and quantitatively complete the subsequent interference processing. The case study results show that the proposed method can achieve quantitative prediction of assembly clearances and generate a precise repair scheme. The interference for ship rib plate assembly is reduced by 50%, and the efficiency is increased by 24%.