The fuselage of large commercial aircraft is often manufactured by fitting and joining cylindrical fuselage sections sometimes referred to as “barrels”. The fuselage sections are assembled together using splice straps and splice elements that span the joint between the sections. Because of accumulated manufacturing variations in parts forming each section, sometimes referred to as tolerance stacking, small mismatches between mating surfaces of the fuselage sections create gaps that must be filled with shims or spacers. In the past, in order to determine the size and location of the gaps, the fuselage sections were fitted together and held in place using jigs or fixtures. Based on this preliminary “fit”, the gaps were measured and custom parts, spacers or shims were machined to fill the gaps.
Shims add parasitic weight to the aircraft, and are both time consuming and expensive to manufacture, since each shim is unique and must be machined to size by skilled craftsman. Furthermore, the process of physically fitting the fuselage sections together, determining the dimensions of the needed shims and then manufacturing the shims must be performed in a serial manner, all in a critical path of the manufacturing process. As a result, the shimming process adds to factory flow time.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of assembling fuselage sections that eliminates the requirement for spacers and shims to fill gaps in mismatched, mating surfaces. Embodiments of the disclosure are directed toward satisfying this need.