Five-axis Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement of Hollow Blade Wall and Evaluation of Internal Chamber Section

Abstract

Hollow blades play an important role in the aircraft engines. To ensure the manufacturing quality of the hollow blades, an ultrasonic inspection method for inspecting the internal chamber is proposed in this paper. The measured data is obtained by a five-axis Coordinate Measuring Machine with an ultrasonic probe. To fill the vacancy of data in high-curvature regions, an approximation curve is constructed according to the theoretical section line and the measured points. By adjusting the position of the theoretical clamber point and setting the adjustment direction, the non-uniform shrinkage of the ceramic core is simulated and the calculation amount is reduced. Filling points are obtained from the approximation curve and the internal chamber section is reconstructed by these points. The internal chamber of the hollow blade is evaluated from the two aspects of line profile and wall thickness. The experiments have verified the effectiveness of the proposed method.