Robotic Dry Stripping of Airframes: Phase II

At the U.S. Department of Defense Tri-Service Advanced Coatings Removal Conference, Orlando, Florida, March 1-3, 1988, we presented information on Air Canada's interest in the development of a dust-free, automated, plastic media dry stripping system. This included a description of semi-automated equipment under development for this project based on Air Canada's stationary/simulator configuration experience. Phase I of their program was to build a prototype of the proposed robotic arm, and it's dust enclosure to: prove basic automation concepts; show reasonable paint removal rate from a curved surface; and, establish that process is dust-free and recovers media in a closed-cycle fashion. Phase I was successfully completed by the March 1988 date of the first paper, except for the determination of optimum blasting parameters. This paper contains Air Canada's calculations on the effect of different blasting parameters in order to determine optimum values required for completion of Phase I. Also included is progress into Phase II. Phase II is to prove the total concept by building and demonstrating the capability of a complete system, i.e., with the robotic arm/blast enclosure mounted on the arm of a motorized man-lift/platform.