How Is 3D Scanning Used to MRO of Airbus A350

Aircraft MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) is an indispensable requirement to guarantee the aircraft is maintained in pre-determined conditions of airworthiness for safe transportation.

During the flight, aircraft will experience bird and lightning strikes, resulting in deformation even damages to its engine lips. Therefore, airline companies are under increased pressure to conduct thorough-paced 3D inspection promptly to avoid accidents.

MRO teams don’t have enough time to measure and repair the in-service aircraft. Besides, the engine lip volume of the aircraft is very bulky. Besides, it is generally designed to be a smooth transition parabolic shape with a variable cross-section. What’s the worst that manufacturers will not share the original data. Hence, Maintenance personnel confronted with a huge challenge in capturing accurate 3D data, and this kind of manual measurement is time-consuming and accuracy-deficiency.

ScanTech 3D Solution

For aerospace application, we had such an experience in scientific research on 3D scanning of helicopter to help an engineering laboratory of a university deeply understand the helicopter R&D.

In that case, we used our portable PRINCE 3D scanner that has an obvious advantage in detail acquisition, and comes with MSCAN – a great helper for large-volume measuring due to its photogrammetry function.

Case Analysis

This combination delivers fast and precise 3D solutions to address quality control and reverse engineering needs. Today, we will share you the Airbus A350 case with the same 3D solution.

Object: Airbus A350 Rolls-Royce Engine lips; approx. 3m in diameter

Step 1: MSCAN photogrammetry system takes multiple 2D images of the engine lips

Step 2: Calculate the 3D coordinate values ​​of the key positions and obtain 3D data

MSCAN photogrammetry

Step 3. Fast scanning to capture the point cloud data of the engine lip’s surface; workstation displays the data in real-time.

PRINCE 3D Scanner

Dealing with large-scale measurement, ScanTech has various product assortment. You can directly choose one kind of 3D scanning tools, like our KSCAN 3D scanner with built-in photogrammetry system, this 3D scanner has great performance both in large or small size inspection. Our TrackScan 3D system delivers precise 3D scanning without markers. In addition, our AXE-B113D scanner is the premier choice for large-scale measurement without the help of extra devices.