Product category:
Form/co-ordinate, optical and vision instrumentation
News Release from: NVision | Subject: Maxos optical scanning system
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 29 June 2007
Optical scanning slashes inspection
times
Centrax' Maxos optical scanning system has cut a customer's turbine blade inspection times by 97% compared to the co-ordinate measuring machine it was previously using.
Centrax has reduced the time required to inspect turbine blades 97% by switching from a co-ordinate measuring machine (CMM) to the Maxos optical scanning system "We originally planned to purchase several touch probe CMMs to keep pace with production during a ramp up of our blisk (blade integrated disk) manufacturing program", said Kevin Vickers of Centrax
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 26 Feb 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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NVision's Maxos is based on proven technology developed for the measurement of turbine blades in a shop floor environment.
"But we discovered that the Maxos system is so much faster than the other machines we had considered that a single Maxos scanner handles our planned output".
Centrax' Turbine Components Division produces compressor and turbine aerofoils, discs, shafts, casings, associated hardware including sub assemblies and engine modules.
Blisks consist of rotor disks with integral blades or vanes for gas turbines.
Further reading
Inspection system outperforms CMMS
The Maxos solution includes a noncontact light probe, a bridge or horizontal gantry, a turntable option, installation, custom programming, training and maintenance.
Programme membership adds PLM to measurement
NVision offers PTC's industry leading mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions.
One of a blisk's major advantages over the conventional disk and blade arrangement is the potential weight saving through the elimination of the fixings that secure the blade root to the disk.
One of the greatest challenges of producing blisks is inspecting them to ensure that they meet the very close required tolerances.
The conventional approach to inspecting blisks is with touch probe CMMs that are moved from point to point.
But this approach is very slow because the touch probe must make actual physical contact with each point that it measures.
The speed of the measurements is limited by how quickly the probe can be moved around the blade.
Noncontact scanners have recently been offered for this market that are faster but their weakness is that they cannot scan freshly machined or highly polished surfaces unless the surfaces are sprayed with a coating.
This need for a coating creates problems because it takes time, raises the risk of contaminating the blades and has released dimensional inaccuracy.
The Maxos scanner uses a proprietary noncontact probe consisting of a point of white light that allows the collection of individual points at a rate of 70 per second.
Like a touch probe CMM it collects individual points but unlike a conventional CMM it continues on its path at high speed and without pausing.
Because the Maxos scanner measures with a single white light point, the cause of inaccuracy and approximation inherent in 3D measurement with a ball probe is eliminated.
Consequently, Maxos has an exceptionally high accuracy of +/- 2um on matt surfaces and +/- 10um on polished metal.
It can achieve a point spacing resolution of 0.2um without pausing.
Additionally, since it has no ball probe and measures a single point at a time it is not limited by ball-offset geometry and can inspect radii of less than 0.2mm.
This feature is key to the measurement of leading and trailing edges on turbine blades.
The Maxos is a product of NVision in North America.
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