Open Call for Innovative Defense-Related Dual-Purpose Technologies/Solutions with a Clear Air Force Stakeholder Need

This project is proposing to conduct later stage development to demonstrate automated, adaptive methods for repaired blade profiling, blending and polishing of integral bladed rotor (IBR) blades and insert the technology onto the OC-ALC shop floor. This effort will define the path and conduct feasibility trials required for adapting commercially available individual blade finishing methods to the repair and restoration of IBR blades. To reduce the process cycle time and cost of the IBR blade repair it is desirable to have an automated method to perform finish machining and blending of the repaired IBR blade. This SBIR project will demonstrate such automated methods by combining off the self, commercially available technology and integrating them in an innovative manor for application to IBR components. The project will focus on adapting structured light inspection methods to establish an IBR digital twin, with emphasis on the individual blades in need of repair, to provide the base digital thread for the entire IBR blade repair process. It will also utilize commercial automated profiling, blending and polishing methods used to produce individual gas turbine compressor blades by adapting the process know-how to an IBR blade configuration.