Auteur : Prasad V. Rayasam
Description : This paper discusses how design for manufacturability can result in creating a lower cost product to meet all performance targets. Integration and collaboration between design and manufacturing teams result in questioning legacy product features and developing new ones that meet performance & manufacturing criteria. In this paper we discuss one specific example of design for manufacturing of airfoils for modern day Turbines. Generation of 5-axis CAM toolpath for airfoil machining is a complex process. There is high value in designing “manufacturable” or producible airfoil CAD models at the design phase to ensure reduced rework to fix geometry inconsistencies during the manufacturing phase. We discuss common issues faced during machining of airfoils and how they can be mitigated with better airfoil design in conceptual design phase. Though authors did not explicitly follow SAVE recommended value engineering steps during the execution of this project, in hindsight, the mindset required and employed by entire global team was no different than the spirit of value engineering.
The main challenge faced in creating such mindset is many times lack of awareness and in-depth knowledge of design requirements by manufacturing engineers and lack of manufacturing constraints and cost functions by design engineers. One of the important enablers for breaking these barriers between design and manufacturing is CAD-CAM framework. What we learnt is the need for same set of tools or seamless integration of tools that is transparent to users in both communities and also need for “real time” feedback during design of features. An analysis was carried out of common problems faced during airfoil machining which are attributable to geometric inconsistencies. Algorithms were built to identify these geometry inconsistencies. These algorithms were used by preliminary airfoil designers to fix the identified problems in design phase. A steam turbine blade that was manufactured at GE Power business is used for this study. The results helped identify the airfoil geometric inconsistencies upfront and avoidance of re-work and failed toolpath creation during airfoil machining in the shop, resulting in several thousand dollars of benefit. Equally importantly, the process followed especially building an inter-disciplinary global team of design engineers and supply chain engineers/machinists has proven to be a best practice that is being replicated for other projects.