Gas Turbine

AV&R Vision & Robotics offers automated Finishing and Visual Inspection systems. The high precision of AV&R's systems is a natural choice for critical high-value gas turbine parts, both in the aerospace and energy industries.

Deburring Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) Blade

For over 15 years, AV&R has been providing automated systems to OEM gas turbine manufacturers and their supply chain. This long-standing skilled expertise developed by AV&R's engineers has been harnessed to fine-tune their solutions to a high degree of excellence.

The solutions offered by AV&R cover two different areas of focus:

Robotic Finishing such as deburring, profiling, polishing, blending / tri-blend;
Automated Visual Inspection in two dimensions (2D) and in three dimensions (3D).

Benefits

High Pressure Turbine (HPT) Blade Inspection

The automation of processes allows reduction in production and labor costs, as well as improved productivity and quality.

AV&R's systems achieve a high level of accuracy in Robotic Finishing (ex.: profiling at 37.5 microns / ± 1.5 thousandths of an inch) and in Visual Inspection (ex.: detection of random defects with a depth of 20 microns / 0.8 thousandth of an inch).

Answering specifically the needs of the aerospace and energy industries, the solutions developed by AV&R yield a fast return on investment, often achieved in less than a year.

Parts

Any metal part in a gas turbine (with or without coating) requiring finishing machining and / or inspection is a typical application for AV&R's expertise. The majority of AV&R's systems work on blades, vanes, blisks / IBRs and casings of gas turbines used in aerospace and energy. AV&R has also developed an expertise in aerospace structures on lip skins and in inspection of complete aircraft engines.

Consult the tabs below for more information on AV&R's offered solutions for specific parts.

Blades / Vanes

AV&R developed Robotic Finishing and Automated Visual Inspection systems for high pressure and low pressure turbine blades, for variable vanes and for fan blades. Here are some examples of projects realized in both areas of expertise:

Robotic Finishing

Profiling of leading and trailing edges of blades and vanes with an accuracy of 37.5 microns (± 1.5 thousandths of an inch);
Deburring and creating radius on forged blades, vanes and dove-tails;
Polishing of blades and buckets with or without coating by closed-loop or adaptive machining;
Tri-blend between the airfoils and the platforms of blades and variables vanes.

Automated Visual Inspection

Automated inspection of blades (airfoil, platform, dove-tail and others) to detect surface defects from a dimension of 100 by 100 microns (4 thousandths of an inch);
Discrimination of random defects with a depth of 20 microns (0.8 thousandth of an inch), such as nicks, dents, scratches, tooling marks, etc. on high pressure turbine blades.

Blisks / IBRs

AV&R develops Robotic Finishing solutions for blisks / IBRs which finish the blades (deburring, polishing and more) and balance the disks.

AV&R also develops Automated Visual Inspection solutions for blisks / IBRs which detect surface defects from a dimension of 100 by 100 microns (4 thousandths of an inch) such as nicks, dents, scratches, tooling marks, welding defects, etc. Its systems can discriminate random defects with a depth of 20 microns (0.8 thousandth of an inch).

Others

AV&R developed an expertise in Robotic Finishing of carters; deburring, blending, creating chamfers and inspecting the components after the finishing machining.

AV&R's team also has the capacity to develop systems for large components:

Robotic Finishing systems for aircraft engine lip skins performing the grinding, cutting, drilling and polishing while measuring the thickness of the part in closed-loop;
Automated Visual Inspection systems verify the assembly of aircraft engines to prevent assembly defects such as the presence of a wrong component, the absence of an element, the installation of a part on the opposite side or in the wrong place.