Saving time, money, and increasing productivity
Technopark Aviation Technologies, based in Russia, has worked with the country’s largest gas turbine engine largest provider. These are necessary engines that provide power to trains, aircraft, ships, and more. Each engine has to be put together accurately, quickly, and precisely to get a properly running piece. Every piece of the engine needs to be measured and then inspected; the faster this process happens, the more productive a company is. However, this is a tedious process, and mistakes can happen easily. 3D laser scanning allows the team to see accurate measurements easily.
The goal of using 3D laser scanning was to maximize energy efficiency by adding in bladed disks. However, the challenges of doing this were immense. The entire process was costly and had to be repeated several times before finding a method that worked. In the future this will save them time, money and the company will be more productive.
“There was an obvious need to develop a fundamentally new solution for faster, high-precision bladed disk milling.” Semen Starovoytov, Candidate of Technical Science and Head of the Innovation Department at Technopark.
How 3D technology works
3D laser scanning devices are some of the most precise tools we have ever created, and because of that feature, it is helping us upgrade our old processes. It takes rapid pictures of an object, measuring it and analyzing it from every side, all in under a few moments. It has lasers that project out to the object and are measured by the distance they travel.
The benefits of additive manufacturing
There are many benefits a manufacturing company receives from using 3D laser scanning.
- Complex parts become cheaper. Instead of needing men to work hours reverse engineering a part to redo it or learn about it, a scanner can do the most complex job in minutes.
- Easy to see the scans. If a piece needs to be changed, it can be caught quickly before the process moves on.
- The process speeds up. Since scans are done really quickly, the process can continue almost nonstop. This means a company can be much more productive than usual with 3D laser scanning.
- Everything can be maintained as a digital file. If one piece that has been created works exceptionally well, the company now has a record of the exact process it took to get the piece, and it can be saved as an efile for later use.
- It is a better way to communicate. Instead of stopping the entire process, anyone who has access can see the scans.
Nothing else has provided so many benefits in just one tool. It has changed the way processes are run and upgrading our products.
Final thoughts
3D laser scanning has expanded beyond what we would have ever believed. It has become used in many unsuspecting fields and will continue to grow in use as the technology develops and advances. Many consumers are gaining these benefits in ways they may not even be aware of. For instance, we get safer engines and pieces to automobiles with the help of 3D laser scanning.
