Problem

Measuring the thickness of an object like a propeller has generally been a tedious process that is difficult to repeat consistently.

The traditional thickness measurement process goes something like this:

1. Mark each blade to define cylindrical (or conic) cross sections
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2. Using a flexible ruler, measure several points along each cross section (top and bottom), marking each one
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3. Using calipers, measure the thickness at each marked point
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As you can see, there’s a lot of room for error and individual variation between parts and inspectors.

Solution

Using a 3D scanner, you can scan these same parts, and then set up Rapidform XOV to automatically measure thickness (among other things) and generate a report for each part. Using these technologies, the process is 100% repeatable for every like part.

Here’s how the process works with a 3D scanner and XOV:

1. Scan the part. (There are a variety of scanners available; you can find pricing and accuracy info on rapidform.com’s 3D scanner info page)
2. Open the scan data in XOV, and create offset cylinders/cones that will be used for measurement
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3. Create section curves from the cylinders/cones, and then set the measurement points along the curves using “Add thickness deviation pattern”
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4. The software reports the thickness values for each requested location
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Note that once you’ve defined the cylinders and measurement points on a given part, every like part after that can be inspected with just one operation. You can also set up a trend analysis report to aggregate the results of several part inspections and look for trends.