dc.description.abstract | The need in functionality and safety for blades in airplanes has made the quality control of the manufacturing of the blades to be an important work. One-dimensional gages, two-dimensional gages and templates are traditionally used for the inspection of blades. However, three-dimensional inspection is getting popular in some major aerospace industrial Companies as the coordinate measuring machines incorporating software technology has become matured. The purpose of this study is to develop three-dimensional inspection technology for fan blades and nozzle segments, which are manufactured by one of the aerospace industrial Companies.
The study in fan blades is focused on the development of coordinate measuring metrology for airfoil and the analysis of the measured data. It requires the blueprint and the 3D CAD model as the input, where the blueprint is used to obtain the information required for measurement and the 3D CAD model is used for measurement planning and data analysis purpose. This study develops an integrated procedure for the inspection of fan blades, including coordinate system setup, constant height measurement method for the airfoil, blade profile measurement, airfoil parameter analysis and profile tolerance analysis. The proposed technology has been applied to the manufacturing of a type of fan blade. The analysis results have also been verified.
The study in nozzle segment is focused on the coordinate system setup and the development of a program for automatic inspection of the machining dimensions. The coordinate setup method is based on so-called six-points coordinate setup method, which is widely used in blade blueprints. This study develops an iterative method for the setup of the coordinate system on the coordinate measuring machine. The automatic measurement procedure is developed based on the dimensions specified by the blueprint. The program can measure all the machining dimensions of a nozzle segment within thirty minutes, which is obviously faster than manual operations. | en_US |