Additive Manufacturing Repair Solution Uses Advanced Machine Vision & Adaptive Software
Optomec has announced the receipt of a $1.25 Million order for a production Metal Additive Manufacturing machine for the maintenance of industrial gas turbine components. The long-time customer, a Fortune 500 energy equipment supplier, will install the machine in one of its service facilities in the Middle East region. This order marks the fifth Optomec Metal Additive Manufacturing machine purchased by this customer for production repair applications.
Industrial gas turbines, used for power generation, operate at extreme temperatures and are prone to wear on the surfaces of components such as compressor and turbine blades. The worn surfaces can decrease the efficiency of the turbine as well as reduce its reliability. In the past, these components were either replaced with new parts at great cost, or repaired by labor-intensive hand operations. Optomec’s proprietary Additive Manufacturing process uses a combination of advanced machine vision, adaptive software, on-the-fly laser power adjustment and automation to precisely add metal to worn turbine components, restoring them to the geometric specifications set by the original turbine manufacturers. A recent independent study has shown that the Return on Investment for Optomec’s automated repair solution exceeds 180% over a five year period.
“We are pleased to see that, despite COVID and supply chain issues, our customers are making capital investments to increase their efficiencies.” said Mike Dean, VP of Marketing at Optomec. “We expect continued growth in adoption of our cost-saving solutions in the gas turbine industry, especially given that penetration rates are low while ROI’s are high and improving as we introduce more turnkey processes and integrated automation.”
Optomec’s Metal Additive repair solutions are the gold standard in the gas turbine industry and are currently used in high volume production in approximately 100 MRO installations worldwide for both power generation and aviation applications. A single machine has the capacity to repair 10,000’s of turbine blades annually, and together Optomec users have performed production repairs on more than 10 million components over time.
Optomec’s Metal Additive Manufacturing machines use a process called Directed Energy Deposition (DED) to build 3D metal structures by depositing powdered metal into a precisely controlled pool of melted metal. Fiber-optic lasers supply thermal power while advanced motion control systems produce the required geometries for the parts. Optomec leads the DED market with more than 200 DED machines in use.
For more information: www.optomec.com
