Software developer MachineWorks Ltd, based in Sheffield, UK, has detailed the automated repair of a turbine blade using its Polygonica software, a new reference example for the generation of Additive Manufacturing repair paths.

The accurate registration and alignment of scan data are critical for worn-region modelling and repairs, particularly for turbine blades, blisks and airfoils, explains MachineWorks. This can also include the identification and machining of rest material for CAM tool path generation.

The basic workflow for the demonstration involves:

Automatic repair of the mesh created by the scanner
Aigning the scan of the worn part with the original design part
Computing smooth boundaries of the worn region on the design part
Computing a milling toolpath to remove material in the worn region creating a smooth clean surface
Computing an additive toolpath to add material to fill the volume of missing material
Export the toolpaths to a MachineWorks demo to visualise the results

Author: Andy Cormack