Development of a Process to Generate 3D CAD Models for Re-Engineering of Components for Aging Systems

Abstract

Many systems are designed for useful life that go beyond decades. In most cases, especially when they are expensive, these systems need maintenance. Maintenance of aging systems, that are more than a decade old, requires improvement and/or replacement of components. In most instances new technologies became available, after original design and development, that can be applied to improve the existing aging components and sub-systems. Re-engineering of existing components is usually initiated from existing components. In many instances data packages, which include geometrical and manufacturing information, for these components are not available or incomplete. For mechanical systems, CAD tools provide flexibility and tools that can be used to perform analysis on components to measure performance before they are manufactured. Generation of parametric CAD models is essential to perform analysis and specify manufacturing processes for these components. Reverse engineering process can be used to develop surface and solid models of components from scanned point data for re-engineering. In this paper a general process to generate appropriate CAD models using reverse engineering for re-engineering applications is presented. A B-52 power pot tube is used as an example to demonstrate the steps, tools and techniques involved in development of models for re-engineering to generate surface and parametric solid models from point cloud data.