A Virtual Cutting Based Method for Aero Engine Turbine Blade Reverse Modeling from Its Cone Beam CT Images

Abstract

Turbine blade is one of the critical parts of the aero engine and usually has complex structures. The main purpose of this paper is to present a virtual cutting based method for aero engine turbine blade reverse modeling from its cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) images. Based on the turbine blade CBCT images, an improved Marching Cube algorithm was used to construct a 3D mesh model of the turbine blade. Then, cutting tools of parallel planes, concentric cylinders, concentric cones or revolved free form surfaces were used to cut the turbine blade mesh model to get the profile curves. After the profile curves were constructed by curve fitting and joining, the lofting geometric modeling technique was used to generate the turbine blade airfoil surface working in parallel flow, cylindrical flow, conical flow and revolved free form flow respectively. A set of computer simulating turbine blade CBCT images (512×512×512) was used to test the presented method and the testing results showed that the method was feasible and convenient.