3DScanCo and Reverse Engineering Help Bell
The scanning services performed by 3DScanCo offered Bell Helicopter the ability to successfully transfer
production of the “ Huey” from their Amarillo plant to Crestview’s without losing production time.
Bell Helicopter’s “Huey” is one of the world’s most recognizable helicopters. Primarily used by the U.S. Marine Corps, the current model UH- 1Y’s design stems from the original UH-1 developed in 1955. Manufactured in Amarillo, TX, Bell uses a system of templates to assemble the helicopters. These templates are physical masters, and most have no known documentation.
In late 2006, Bell and Boeing won a joint contract to construct the new Marine One helicopter for the transport of the President. The aircraft would be built at Bell’s Amarillo facility. Therefore, Bell decided to transfer the production site of the cabin of the “Huey” from their plant to one operated by Crestview Aerospace (Crestview, FL) without stopping production. This was made more challenging by the fact that only one set of templates existed. Bell would need to duplicate more than 500 of the unique templates in order to transfer production.
Solution
Bell Helicopter turned to 3DScanCo
(Atlanta, GA) for a reverse engineering
solution. The sheer quantity of the templates
combined with the goal of having as little
downtime as possible brought 3DScanCo to
Amarillo, TX to perform onsite 3D scanning
services. Each one of the 500+ templates,
which range in size from four inches to four
feet, was accurately scanned using the
Konica Minolta VIVID 9i. The VIVID 9i
works like a normal laser triangulation
scanner. The 9i performs laser triangulation
by sweeping a projected laser line onto an
object and then capturing its reflection with a
sensor (camera) located at a known distance
from the laser’s source. The resulting
reflection angle can be interpreted to yield 3D
measurements of the part.
The scan data captured onsite was then sent to 3DScanCo’s Engineering Service Center in Atlanta, GA.
3DScanCo used Rapidform XOR to parametrically reverse-engineer each template, paying close attention to model the exact size and location of the hole features. The features on the templates range from placement holes, to cut-out and stand-off guides. The CAD data generated by 3DScanCo’s reverse modeling process was then successfully incorporated into Bell’s Unigraphics Product Life Management (PLM) software system.
Results
The scanning services performed by
3DScanCo offered Bell Helicopter the ability
to successfully transfer production of the
UH- 1Y from their Amarillo plant to
Crestview’s without losing production time.
Bell has since been able to use the CAD
models of the templates supplied by
3DScanCo to assimilate cutting-edge
technology in their manufacturing process,
benefiting them with digital copies that could
be manufactured on-demand. These digital
models effectively eliminate the need for
physical masters, enabling a higher level of
control and documentation. 3DScanCo’s
services saved Bell a tremendous amount of
time and more than a half-million dollars on
the project, all while breaking new ground
incorporating the templates into a PLM
environment for the first time.
