TY - JOUR

T1 - Recent Progress in Turbine Blade and Compressor Blisk Regeneration

AU - Aschenbruck, Jens

AU - Adamczuk, Rafael

AU - Seume, Joerg R.

N1 - Funding information: The authors kindly thank the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the financial support of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 871 “Regeneration of Complex Capital Goods”.

PY - 2014/4/17

Y1 - 2014/4/17

N2 - The regeneration process of jet engines is a highly complex, expensive and time-consuming. Especially the regeneration of high pressure turbine blades and compressor blisks are at the border of what is technically feasible. These components are highly loaded and thus substantial wear occurs. The blades and blisks must be overhauled or replaced regularly. The existing repair methods for these parts are inflexible and cannot be applied in many cases, resulting in a large number of scrapped parts. Therefore a new turbine blade regeneration process is presented. The goal of the improved process is to reduce the scrap rate and cost. This process includes an early evaluation of the condition of the hot-gas path components before disassembly, new detection methods for defects on the turbine blades surfaces, and more flexible manufacturing processes. The process is supported by production process simulations and functional simulations to predict the optimal regeneration path depending on the blade condition and the business model of the customer. The paper also presents a new approach for compressor blisk regeneration. This process will be developed and validated in the next years. New challenges in structural mechanics, aerodynamics, and manufacturing must be addressed due to the complexity of blisks. As part of the ongoing research, three new blisks will be designed and subjected to the complete regeneration path, which is also supported by simulations. In order to validate the simulations, their results will be compared to experimental results of the regenerated components on a compressor test rig.

AB - The regeneration process of jet engines is a highly complex, expensive and time-consuming. Especially the regeneration of high pressure turbine blades and compressor blisks are at the border of what is technically feasible. These components are highly loaded and thus substantial wear occurs. The blades and blisks must be overhauled or replaced regularly. The existing repair methods for these parts are inflexible and cannot be applied in many cases, resulting in a large number of scrapped parts. Therefore a new turbine blade regeneration process is presented. The goal of the improved process is to reduce the scrap rate and cost. This process includes an early evaluation of the condition of the hot-gas path components before disassembly, new detection methods for defects on the turbine blades surfaces, and more flexible manufacturing processes. The process is supported by production process simulations and functional simulations to predict the optimal regeneration path depending on the blade condition and the business model of the customer. The paper also presents a new approach for compressor blisk regeneration. This process will be developed and validated in the next years. New challenges in structural mechanics, aerodynamics, and manufacturing must be addressed due to the complexity of blisks. As part of the ongoing research, three new blisks will be designed and subjected to the complete regeneration path, which is also supported by simulations. In order to validate the simulations, their results will be compared to experimental results of the regenerated components on a compressor test rig.

KW - Compressor blisks

KW - Jet-engine overhaul

KW - Regeneration

KW - Turbine blade repair

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84936160178&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.016

DO - 10.1016/j.procir.2014.07.016

M3 - Conference article

AN - SCOPUS:84936160178

VL - 22

SP - 256

EP - 262

JO - Procedia CIRP

JF - Procedia CIRP

SN - 2212-8271

IS - 1

T2 - 3rd International Conference in Through-life Engineering Services, 2014

Y2 - 4 November 2013 through 5 November 2013

ER -