Method of finishing a blade
AssigneeROLLS-ROYCE plc
InventorRoisin Louise HANLON
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automated technique for finishing gas turbine engine blades or vanes by generating a bespoke tooling path for each blade or vane. The bespoke tooling path is generated by scanning the aerofoil surface to generate a 3-D electronic representation of the surface. The 3-D electronic surface is then analysed to identify imperfections or defects, and then a machining path a generated through which the imperfections can be removed. The machining path is determined so as to smoothly blend the surface back to the underlying surface where the imperfections had been present. In this way, the resulting aerofoil, once machined, has optimized aerodynamic performance.
Claims20
A method of finishing aerodynamic surfaces of a component for a gas turbine engine to produce a finished component from a rough component, the method comprising:
- scanning aerodynamic surfaces of the rough component to obtain scanned electronic 3-D data representing the scanned surfaces of the rough component;
- identifying, using the scanned 3-D data, specific features to be removed from the rough component;
- generating a bespoke tooling path to remove the features identified for removal;
- and
- machining the rough component according to the generated bespoke tooling path so as to thereby produce a finished component, wherein
- the step of identifying the features to be removed comprises comparing the scanned 3-D data at a given position on the scanned surface to the scanned 3-D data at neighbouring positions on the scanned surface so as to determine the local shape of the scanned surfaces.
A method of manufacturing a component for a gas turbine engine, the component having internal cavities and external aerodynamic surfaces separated by a wall thickness, the method comprising:
- taking an X-ray image of an over-sized raw form of the component, the raw form including the internal cavities;
- generating a bespoke tooling path for the raw form based on the X-ray image and desired external aerodynamic surfaces of the component, the tooling path being set to produce a predetermined wall thickness for the component;
- and
- machining the raw form according to the generated bespoke tooling path so as to thereby produce the component having the desired external surfaces and predetermined wall thickness.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.