Repairing turbine element

1. A method for restoring a part which has lost first material from a site, the first material being from a metallic substrate and the method comprising:

placing the part in a deposition chamber;

applying a first electric potential to the part;

evaporating components for forming a repair material;

ionizing the evaporated components; and

modulating the first electric potential so as to draw the ionized components to the part so that buildup of the repair material at least partially replaces the first material.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the part is a Ti alloy turbine part and the repair material is Ti-based.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the modulating is performed so as to prevent arcing from the part.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

heating the part; and

modulating the heating of the part in conjunction with the modulating of the first electric potential.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the modulating comprises:

maintaining a principally negative potential; and

applying positive pulses of relatively short duration.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the ionizing is modulated.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the method further comprises removing additional material of the metallic substrate at least partially from the site to create a base surface; and

the physically depositing deposits said repair material atop the base surface at least partially in place of the first material and the additional material.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the removing of additional material is, in major part, from undamaged portions of the part.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein:

said deposited repair material in major part replaces said first material.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein said repair material comprises material selected from the group consisting of Ti-6Al-4V, Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo, Ti-8Al-1V-1Mo, and Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-6Mo.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the part is a blade having a root and an airfoil and the site is along a leading edge of the airfoil inboard of a midspan shroud of the airfoil.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the first material is lost to a depth of at least 2.0 mm.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

applying a backing element to the part protruding adjacent the site so that the deposited repair material builds up on the base surface and backing element.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

at least partially removing the backing element and machining adjacent deposited material and preexisting material of the part to create a second base surface; and

physically depositing more of the repair material atop the second base surface.

15. The method of claim 1 performed at a pressure less than 0.01 Pa.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the first electric potential has:

a nominal voltage of 50V-10 kV;

a pulse repetition frequency of 0.05-150 kHz;

a pulse width of at least 5 μs;

a duty cycle of 0.1-0.99; and

an ion current density of 1-50 mA/cm 2 at a deposition rate of 10-50 μm/minute.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein:

the nominal voltage is 1-3 kV;

the pulse repetition frequency is 0.5-5 kHz; and

the ion current density is 2-10 mA/cm 2 at a deposition rate of 15-20 μm/minute.

18. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the ionizing is pulse modulated with a pulse repetition frequency of 100-1000 Hz and a duty cycle of 0.5-0.9.