Assessment of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Rotor Fixture used in Gas turbine Assembly

Abstract

Abstract: The study involves an examination of the rotor fixture assembly to understand its functionality under standard boundary conditions. The fixture components were modelled in NX CAD. To achieve the desired weight reduction and equivalent stiffness, Finite Element Analysis was conducted both before and after the Topology Optimization process using the Density-based method in ANSYS. The objective was to optimize rotor fixture design for additive manufacturing to reduce weight and lead time. Finite Element Analysis and topology optimization were used to redesign the fixture, resulting in a 16.3% mass reduction for the solid model and 27.5% for the shell model while maintaining stiffness. Metal additive manufacturing reduced lead time by 46% despite a 17% increase in cost compared to conventional machining. Future work may involve lattice structure design and part distortion prediction using Ansys additive software for further improvements.