Joshua Orr, 60th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, uses a CreaForm HandyScan 700 to capture digital information of an aircraft part.
Joshua Orr, 60th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, uses a CreaForm HandyScan 700 to capture digital information of an aircraft part.
3D printing and scanning are implementing new strategies to reduce man hours and increase mission success. These strategies have been used over the past several months. Col. Matthew Leard, 60th Air Mobility Wing vice commander from Travis U.S. Air Force Base in California states
“At Travis (AFB), Airmen are empowered to identify and solve problems at their level, rapidly, we want Airmen to think big and try the ideas others say will never work. It does not always have to be proven technology or have a business case. Let’s just try it, who knows it may just work.”
Since the Air Force desired increase in readiness, cost reduction and enhance lethality of the force there were $64 million distributed in funding. In October, Travis AFB obtained a Creaform HandyScan 700 3D hand scanner which is capable of producing three-dimensional representations of aircraft parts. This same device is also helpful in finding and inspecting aircraft damage.
Master Sgt. Christopher Smithling, 60th Maintenance Squadron assistant section chief for aircraft structural maintenance states
“ The scanner displays the deepest part of a dent to the nearest thousandth of an inch, the scanner can identify the shape of a dent, as well as if it’s sharp, smooth or round, which allows us to give our engineers a better damage analysis than we could before.”
Smithling said the scanner was first used in November to inspect the landing gear of a C-17 Globemaster III after a bird strike, and over the past month, has greatly reduced the time required to complete damage inspections.
“One of our C-5 aircraft went through a hail storm in 2013 and we found many dents on all the panels,” he said. “We’ve performed an inspection of this aircraft every 180 days and we’ve had to measure every dent that’s still on the wing’s surface. The first few times we did that, it took us 48 hours. We had that C-5 in our hangar last week and we were able to inspect the four primary structural panels in 30 minutes.”
The 60th MXS is also in the process of procuring two 3D printers, one polymer printer and one metal printer, so they can reproduce aircraft parts. Smithling also states.
“With the two additive manufacturing units, we will be able to grab any aircraft part, scan it, and within four to eight hours, we will have a true 3D drawing of it that we can send to the additive manufacturing unit to print it,”
Want to Learn More About 3D Scanning?
Original Source: http://metrology.news/innovation-enhancing-mission-for-u-s-air-force?fbclid=IwAR0Iu8yO93rjH1qSXviZcFRY9a90CJnwQOI-Mhwl7eHGxWZRvm-bKiOSICI