Reverse engineering in the design of turbine blades - a case study in applying the MAMDP

This paper presents a case study on the reverse engineering of turbine blades used in nuclear power generators. Reverse engineering has been widely recognised as a crucial step in the product design cycle. However, major problems with current reverse engineering technology are the inefficient surface reconstruction process, lack of digitising accuracy control in the data digitisation process, and bottlenecks resulted from huge amounts of digitised surface points in the surface modeling process. Moreover, under this limitation, modern concurrent engineering concepts are difficult to implement to obtain optimal product design. This study applies a developed reverse engineering approach - the modified adaptive model-based digitizing process (MAMDP) to the 3D geometric design of turbine blades. The approach integrates surface digitising and modeling processes of turbine blades into a single surface reconstruction process. Using the approach, accurate product CAD models can be efficiently generated and the product design cycle of turbine blades can be successfully linked. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.