3D Scanning Solution for Inspection and Product Development of Ship Turbine Blade from JuliaCao's blog

Ship Component Manufacturer

Our client is a leading player in the marine engineering field, specializing in the research and development of ship-related products. Their primary offering includes high-performance ship engine blades. However, they face significant challenges in the inspection and quality control processes, particularly concerning the scanning and measurement of turbine blades.

Features of the Turbine Blade to Be Inspected

The turbine blades produced by our client are typically made from aluminum and exhibit unique geometrical characteristics, with a thickness ranging from 1 to 2 mm and sharp edges that need to be accurately represented. These features are crucial to ensuring the overall quality of the final products.

Scantech's 3D Solutions for Product Development and Inspection

To address these challenges, we introduced our advanced scanning solution: the SIMSCAN 42.

SIMSCAN, a portable palm-sized 3D laser scanner designed for capturing hard-to-reach areas and narrow spaces. With a sturdy full-metal housing, it delivers reliable performance and has received prestigious awards like the German Red Dot Award and the China Design Silver Award.

The SIMSCAN excels in high-quality 3D scanning, enabling users to quickly and accurately capture intricate details of both narrow spaces and large-scale components. Additionally, Scantech offers wireless SIMSCAN-E, which enhances flexibility and ease of use, making it an ideal metrology-grade measurement instrument for various applications.

Scantech's 3D scanning technology helps the user to obtain full-field and precise 3D data of turbine blades for product development and inspection. 3D scanning allows the company to quickly create accurate digital models of existing parts. This accelerates the prototyping process, enabling teams to iterate designs based on precise data without starting from scratch.

High-tech 3D scanning also provides detailed measurements of parts, enabling thorough quality assessments. By comparing scanned data against design tolerances, the manufacturer identifies defects or deviations in real time, ensuring only products that meet quality standards are delivered.

The 3D scanner combined with advanced software brings numerous benefits:

Enhanced Precision: The blue laser technology significantly improves scanning accuracy, enabling precise capture of fine details, including sharp edges and intricate geometries with an accuracy of up to 0.020 mm.

Material Compatibility: The SIMSCAN 42 handheld 3D laser scanner 's advanced settings, including adjustable exposure and a bright mode, allow it to scan shiny machined surfaces effectively without the need for additional coatings.

Effective Hole Scanning: Compared to its competitors, the SIMSCAN features a shorter camera distance of 130 mm, allowing for a steeper viewing angle when 3D scanning narrow spaces. This design enables the SIMSCAN to capture accurate and complete data in hard-to-reach areas, such as deep grooves, ensuring users can obtain full-field data effectively.

With the capability to scan close distances and complex geometries, the SIMSCAN ensures comprehensive data capture, even in hidden or challenging areas.

Thin-Walled Feature: By adjusting point density settings, the device can effectively capture the details of thin edges and corners, fulfilling the client's requirements for product development and quality assurance.

Efficiency: Thanks to its measurement rate of up to 2.8 million measurements/s, each part can be scanned in approximately 10 minutes, allowing for rapid data collection without compromising quality.

Scanning Results and Analysis

The results obtained from using the SIMSCAN 42 were transformative for the client. The enhanced scanning process not only provided complete data sets but also ensured that the geometric details were accurately represented, particularly the sharp edges and intricate designs of the turbine blades. This newfound precision allows for reliable reverse engineering and quality assessments, marking a significant improvement over previous methods.