Structured light measuring apparatus and methods
A field deployable, portable structured light measurement (SLM) apparatus, together with a structured light measurement process to manage part to part variation in production and in the field, to support both rotor airfoil mistuning and rotor airfoil repair limits.
1. A method of assessing a component of a gas turbine engine while disposed on the gas turbine engine using a field deployable, portable structured light measuring apparatus including at least a portable base structure and an articulating arm member, the method comprising the steps of:
deploying the field deployable, portable structured light measuring apparatus relative to a gas turbine engine containing the component, the component including at least one of an airfoil of a compressor rotor or blisk fan of the gas turbine engine to be assessed while the gas turbine engine is disposed within its field of use installed on an aircraft;
using the field deployable, portable structured light measuring apparatus to generate structured light measurement data of the airfoil;
generating a model of an entire operational portion of the airfoil using the structured light measurement data representative of at least one operational characteristic data of the airfoil at least including a natural frequency of the airfoil; and
assessing a condition of the airfoil based upon the airfoil operational characteristic data and at least one comparison data.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one operational characteristic data comprises a natural frequency of each of a plurality of airfoils of the compressor rotor or blisk fan.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one operational characteristic data comprises a frequency distribution of frequencies of each of a plurality of airfoils of the compressor rotor or blisk fan.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one operational characteristic data comprises assessment data selected from one of: stress, frequency, performance and acoustics.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one operational characteristic data comprises a repairability of the airfoil.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one operational characteristic data comprises a conformance to specifications of the airfoil.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the model of the airfoil comprises a model representing characteristics of an entire operational surface portion of each of a plurality of airfoils within the compressor rotor or blisk fan.