The fan blades in a fan rotor stage of a gas turbine engine can be subject to damage caused by a variety of different factors. For example, foreign objects can strike a fan blade causing Foreign Object Damage (FOD), surface erosion can occur, or vibratory response can produce high cycle fatigue that can lead to damage, to name a few. Such damage may be randomly located (FOD) or it may be statistically more likely located in certain regions; e.g., along the leading edge of a fan blade, and more specifically at certain regions of a fan blade leading edge. Current practices for inspecting fan blades involve a manual inspection of each fan blade by a technician when the turbine engine is shut down. Inspections of this type are time intensive, costly, and require skilled technicians. There is a need for a more efficient and less costly process that can be used to inspect fan blades. One potential solution is an Optical Inspection System (OIS) deployed at low speeds (~<500 rpm) and a processing system to determine if any appreciable FOD is present leading to a pass/fail decision and potentially drive a manual inspection. The OIS will send image data to the FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) for processing/storage and can be offloaded for review.

Our team collaborated with Mechanical Engineering 34 on this project.