Repair of airfoil edges
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsDewey D. Dunkman, Warren D. Grossklaus, Jr., Petra Bracko
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention provides a method and apparatus to repair gouged out and damaged leading and trailing edges of gas turbine engine blades, particularly fan blades, by cutting away a curved section including the damaged area and forming a blend radius along the repaired edge. The apparatus includes a unique machine tool guide having an adjustable cutting depth guide and mountable to a hand held machine tool driver, such as 90 degree angle head air motor, that drives a rotary cutter.
Claims4
An airfoil spanwise edge repair method comprising:
- delineating a curved area of the edge to be removed that includes a damage area,
- cutting away the curved, delineated area to be removed creating a portion of concavely curved, repaired airfoil edge,
- forming a repaired airfoil edge radius along the concavely curved, repaired airfoil edge portion.
An airfoil spanwise edge repair method for repair of airfoils installed on a turbine engine, comprising:
- gaining access to the airfoils through an engine case access window,
- visually inspecting the airfoils for damage,
- locating damage and measuring a maximum depth D of gouges in a damaged area,
- delineating the area of the airfoil to be removed, including the damaged area, with a curved line L wherein each of the end points of line L is located a spanwise distance of 4 D from the point of the deepest gouge,
- removing the delineated area including the damaged area using a straight edge rotary cutter driven by a hand held motor forming a repaired airfoil edge that generally coincides with line L,
- forming an airfoil edge blend radius along the repaired airfoil edge using at least one concave contour rotary cutter, and
- finishing the surface of the repaired leading edge using a rubberized abrasive grinding wheel having a grinding surface contoured to form a repaired airfoil edge blend radius.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.