Rapid digitization and non-rigid registration of aerospace blade geometries for hybrid manufacturing component repair

Abstract

Using hybrid manufacturing strategies provides an opportunity to automate the entire process of repairing airfoil components, which involves processes that include preparing for pre-weld airfoil, wire-feed welding, on-machine probing, blending, and polishing. To achieve the above requires both rapid digitization and non-rigid registration methods to fully utilize additive and subtractive manufacturing process to achieve high dimensional accuracy, time and material efficiency. In this study, several profile digitization strategies are investigated to determine effects on accuracy of the final non-rigid registration of the component geometry and the impact on the quality measures pertaining to parent material blendlines. These profile digitization strategies include approaches based on curvature-based segmentation, G1 and G2 continuity, and local control of maximum profile deviation. From these results, it was seen that by locally controlling maximum profile deviation, it is possible to achieve acceptable profile tolerance limits while limiting the number of points required for profile digitization.