Delcam to present on manufacture and repair of turbine blades at Power-Gen conference

Top Quote Brett L Hopkins, Manager of Delcam Professional Services North America, will present the latest developments in adaptive techniques for the manufacture and repair of turbine blades at the Power-Gen International Conference to be held in Orlando, Florida, from 11th to 13th December. End Quote
  • (1888PressRelease) November 01, 2012 - Most turbine blades, both those newly manufactured and those under repair, require some level of manual grinding and finishing in order to complete the part within specification. Even components produced using the latest methods need these manual operations on the most critical areas, such as the leading edges.

    One major problem with manufacture and repair of components such as blades, vanes, blisks, and other similar parts is the unique geometry of each individual piece due to inherent variability in the forging process and, in the case of repair, the additional stresses induced through lifecycle and welding. Traditionally, the only way to overcome these inconsistencies was to perform the finishing operations by hand with highly-skilled technicians. This approach is very costly and time-consuming and depends on the skills of the technician to deliver consistent results.

    Delcam Professional Services has used its expertise in machining and inspection software to create a range of adaptive machining processes that overcome these problems in an automated and consistent manner. These processes are based on the concept of introducing inspection into the manufacturing process and using it to make in-process changes to the process to create accurate final geometry correctly and without manual intervention.

    The collected inspection data is used to adapt subsequent machining operations to each individual component. The use of these adaptive processes compensates for the variability between each piece and enables components to be finished more quickly, to higher levels of quality and consistency, and without any manual intervention.

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