Measurement and analysis tools join Renishaw’s aerospace blade products

Historically aerospace blades have been measured in sections due to the limitations of measurement techniques. Now these Renishaw products enable the whole blade to be inspected, permitting unlimited section or full surface analysis based on high precision contact probe data. ApexBlade is a software product designed to generate collision-free programs that drive the Revo measurement system to carry out complex 'sweep scans' that will collect point cloud data from across the complete blade surface. The CAD model is imported into the virtual Revo CMM environment prior to the automatic generation of the measurement plan. Both transverse and longitudinal scans are supported and each sweep can be split. This is useful for edges where the actual position is expected to be significantly different from the nominal CAD. Once the user is happy with the program, a DMIS file is generated that can be executed within Renishaw's Modus metrology software. A cloud of tip centre data points is generated over the entire aerofoil and root surfaces. The Modus point cloud sectioning (MPCS) functionality then allows 'on surface' sections to be constructed by intersecting any defined plane with the captured point cloud. This can be carried out at the time of measurement, or in the future if further sections at different locations are required, without the need for re-measurement of the blade. The Modus Airfoil module then allows the user to take the nominal aerofoil sections available from the CAD model and the actual sections from the MPCS to provide blade fitting functionality for the reporting of blade section profile and aerofoil characteristics. Modus offers comprehensive graphical reporting tools and the profile measurement results, which are fully integrated with all other feature measurement reports, can be output in pdf file format. For users requiring a reverse engineering capability, SurfitBlade software, an offline application, can be used to generate NURBS blade surface forms for use in downstream processes such as computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis. It also allows average blade geometry to be established from a series of blade results.