Creation of an automated design tool for one of the essential parts of airport passenger boarding bridges

The air passenger transport sector is constantly growing, and more and more cities are building or renovating airports. As a result, there is an increasing demand for airport solutions that facilitate and speed up passenger boarding, such as Passenger Boarding Bridges (PBB). In this project, carried out jointly with the company ADELTE, an application based on Microsoft Excel is designed, which enables the time invested in the design of the telescopic tunnels, an essential component of the PBB, to be reduced by 25%. This application makes it possible to use a standard tunnel design and a simple interface to change it geometrically, adapting it to the needs of the airport. The design of this application has been carried out using Microsoft Excel and the 3D CAD manipulation part with Solid Edge. This solution is made up of two main components, the Parameterization Books and Tunnel Deus, the algorithm designed to adapt the design to the user’s requests. The design from which this tool is based is a standard design of the company, on which Tunnel Deus acts by forcing the user’s requests. Although the main objective of the project was to reduce the number of hours, in the end we have obtained a tool that, apart from reducing the design time, manages to be didactic. This means that anyone, with or without experience in tunnel design, can use it. Finally, because all the designs made with the solution are based on a standard design, human error is reduced, thus increasing the quality of the product.