The article presents the possibilities of using Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology in the manufacturing of turbine blades with small diameter holes. The object under investigation was gas turbine blade with small diameter cooling holes and holes for generating longitudinal vortices. A turbine blade model was produced by means of Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) technology and subsequently validated in terms of detection and accuracy...

Current development of modern products, together with ever-increasing demands for their operation and usage, necessitate the search for new processing methods. Abrasive machining is widely used in many industrial areas, especially for processing difficult-to-machine materials such as advanced ceramics. Grinding with lapping kinematics, also called lap-grinding, is still one of the innovative methods of abrasive processing being...

Purpose The purpose of this research is to evaluate the geometric quality of small diameter holes in parts printed by DMLS technology. An in-process optical inspection method is proposed and assessed during a pilot study. The influence of the theoretical hole diameter assumed in a CAD system and the sample thickness (hole length) on the hole clearance was analysed. Design/methodology/approach The samples made of two different...