An integrated adaptive repair solution for complex aerospace components through geometry reconstruction

The repair of worn parts is of great interest for aerospace industries to extend the life cycle of aerospace parts. Due to the distortion and defects of a worn part, the nominal CAD model from the design stage is no longer suitable for the use of the repairing process, which causes the main problem for precisely repairing complex components. In this paper, an integrated repair solution adaptive to worn component geometry is proposed and developed for aerospace industries. Based on the scanned repair model with different defects, a reverse engineering(RE)-based geometry reconstruction method is developed for the normal model creation of a worn component. This is a crucial procedure for precisely repairing individual component. Based on the nominal model reconstructed, tool paths used for the build-up and machining process can then be generated to implement the repairing work. In this study, repairing complex blades from aerospace engines were considered and practised. To verify the proposed repair solution, a curved blade to be repaired was used in the experiment and the blade tip model was reconstructed for the subsequent repairing process. Based on the model, the blade was built-up through a laser cladding process and then machined back to size through isoparametric machining strategy on a 5-axis Hermle machine tool. Finally, the experimental results are given and analysed.