A repair and overhaul methodology for aeroengine components

Repair and maintenance of aeroengine components have been one of the main tasks to be overwhelmed by aerospace industries due to continual increase in raw material and manufacturing costs. In this paper, an advanced methodology for the repair of complex geometry and expensive components via reverse engineering, free-form surface modeling and machining is presented. The methodology has been successfully implemented on a critical aeroengine component, i.e. thin-curved compressor blade. The approach involves the integration of 3D non-contact digitization, adaptive free-form surface reconstruction and multi-axis milling operation. Each operation is individually automated and interconnected each other in order to reduce the total repair time. The workshop results have shown that the proposed repair methodology can be considered a reliable and time-cost effective as compared with the current repair approaches. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.