One important application of metal additive manufacturing in the aerospace industry involves not making new parts, but repairing existing ones. Aircraft engine blades such as compressor and turbine blades are subject to wear. Historically these components have been repaired manually, through the work of a skilled welder, but 3D printing via directed energy deposition (DED), guided by optical measurement of the worn blade for generating custom program paths, offers the chance for an automated, unattended system to perform this repair operation. During a visit to Optomec's facility in Clover, South Carolina, I saw how additive manufacturing for aircraft engine blade repair works. This video shows DED of Inconel 625 applied in two different types of paths to repair the tips of a compressor blade and a turbine blade.

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DED and robotic finishing together realize a fully automated repair system for 85,000 aircraft engine blades per year
www.additivemanufacturing.media/articles/turbine-blade-mro-how-additive-manufacturing-plus-robot-finishing-will-scale-repair

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