PC-DMIS Blade – A turnkey solution for measuring and analyzing blades

PC-DMIS Blade simplifies the job of creating blade measurement programs. This software, developed in partnership with various blade manufactures, is a turnkey solution for the analog scanning of blade sections.  PC-DMIS Blade is a Visual Basis add-on to the basic PC-DMIS package.  It has a simple to use GUI, that lets customers quickly identify parts, select the sections to measure and initiate scanning sequences. Setting up to scan a different blade type is a simple matter of entering a new set of parameters.  No additional CMM programming is necessary. 

PC-DMIS Blade uses traditional, section-based techniques to analyze blade measurements.  Blade manufacturers have historically relied on guillotine gages to measure blade characteristics like contour and twist angles.  These gages provide concise information, but they are expensive to make and maintain.  A CMM using PC-DMIS Blade provides a faster, more flexible and less costly approach without compromising accuracy. 

PC-DMIS Blade produces easy to understand graphical reports.  Making blade measurement easy is only half of the equation.  The second half is providing useful, concise information to operators on the shop floor.  PC-DMIS Blade provides a wide range of outputs in simple to read, one-page reports.  Users can configure it to report on important characteristics including things like chord width, leading edge thickness, twist angle, mean camber line and the like. 

PC-DMIS Blade “flavors” its calculations based on manufacturers’ methods.  Blade manufacturers calculate many blade characteristics differently.  Wilcox Associates recognizes this and provide PC-DMIS Blade with algorithms supporting different evaluation techniques.  To switch from one to another, users only have to edit one line of an ASCII text file. 

PC-DMIS Blade includes a range of alignment procedures.  Proper alignment is the key to proper blade measurement.  In addition to supporting the preferred method of root holding with XYZ offsets and A angle rotation to the stacking axis, PC-DMIS Blade also supports 3D iterative alignments using either CAD surface models or 6 point rest.