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202-209
This paper describes state-of-the-art manufacture of ship propeller blades with numerically controlled
(NC) machining. A brief explanation of the rationale for NC machining is provided, followed by a dis-
cussion of the operating experience of a blade machining center over the past six years. Some of the
unique considerations involved in the NC programming and machining processes are described along
with some of the most common production problems. The factors leading to the company's decision to
expand the blade machining center are discussed along with a description of the design and procure-
ment of the new equipment and facilities. Tolerances achieved by NC machining and hand finishing
are compared.
NUMERICALLY CONTROLLED (NC) machining is, in 1989, occurs. To produce truly identical surfaces, the individuals
nearly 40 years old and is an accepted manufacturing pro- doing the grinding must remember exactly how the first was
cess with applications in all phases of industry. NC ma- done and then repeat the process on all other blades. Clearly
chining offers production efficiency, accuracy, and repeata- this task is next to impossible for even the most skilled of
bility and these attributes make it well suited for the craftsman and can be achieved only with numerous addi-
manufacture of ship propeller blades. Bird-Johnson Com- tional inspections at large numbers of intermediate loca-
party first became involved in the NC machining of propeller tions. NC programming, by its very nature, does remember
blades during the DD 963 building program in the early exactly how the first surface was made and precisely repeats
1970's. Initially, the work was subcontracted, but by late 1981 the process for every unit. In addition, the fairing of the sur-
the company had commissioned an in-house blade machin- face between inspection locations will more accurately re-
ing center with both three- and five-axis NC milling ma- flect the intent of the propeller designer because of the
chines. Ridley in 1982 [1]~ documented the steps that led to mathematical model developed to determine the machine
the procurement of this facility along with a description of paths. Further, better blade-to-blade repeatability leads to
its construction and start-up. This paper is intended as a superior interchangeability in built-up and controllable-pitch
follow-up to the original work of reference [1] and discusses propellers because a much closer tolerance on weight and
experiences and developments in numerically controlled ma- center of gravity is achieved and individual blades can be
chining that have taken place at the facility since 1982. In substituted without adversely affecting the dynamic balance
addition, a comparison between hand finished and NC ma- of the assembled propeller.
chined blades is provided that demonstrates the all-around In the area of acoustics, NC machined blades possess an
better tolerances achieved with NC equipment. advantage over hand-finished blades due to the high accu-
racy of the tip and surface geometry manufacture and the
Rationale for NC machining blade-to-blade uniformity described above. The manufacture
of blade tips is crucial to the control of tip vortex cavitation,
When one considers the extensive capital investment in- which in turn affects ship noise performance. Hand-finished
volved in acquiring NC machining capability for marine tips will vary from blade to blade and may or may not reflect
propeller blades, a logical question to ask is, ~'What makes the propeller designer's intention at locations other than
NC machining so superior to hand finishing?" The answer where the tip inspection gages are applied. This, coupled with
to this question covers three major areas of interest for the other blade-to-blade surface variations associated with hand
propeller manufacturer. They are blade-to-blade repeatabil- finishing, leads to differences in the cavitation performance
ity, acoustic considerations, and production cost per unit. In of each blade and results in an ~acoustic fingerprint" for each
each area the NC machining possesses certain advantages propeller on each ship of a class using the same design. NC
over hand finishing as discussed in the following para- machining ensures a uniformity in cavitation performance
graphs. of all blades on a ship and on all ships of t h a t class, imped-
~Blade-to-blade repeatability" refers to the degree to which ing acoustic identification because all blades on all ships tend
blades of a given design can approach the ideal of all being to sound the same. In addition, the high-quality tip geom-
dimensionally identical. Superior "blade-to-blade" repeata- etry achieved with NC tends to suppress premature tip vor-
bility is achieved with NC machining because all the vari- tex cavitation, allowing higher cavitation-free speeds of op-
able human factors associated with hand-finished blades are eration than might otherwise be achieved.
eliminated. Hand finishing can, with special care, produce Production cost of an NC machined propeller blade is typ-
blades that are relatively identical along the lines of con- ically lower than for hand-finished units even when one con-
stant radius where inspections are made, but it is between siders the relatively high overhead costs associated with op-
these radii where fairing is done ~'by eye" that variability erating and maintaining the machine. The experience the
company has had to date indicates that NC machining re-
'Staff Naval Architect, Bird-Johnson Company, Walpole, Masachu- quires approximately less than half the time of an equiva-
seats. lent hand-finishing operation and this difference outweighs
2Numbers in brackets designate References at end of paper. the higher cost of machine time. Programming and tooling
Presented to the October 13, 1988 meeting of the New England Sec- can be extensive and, consequently, expensive, as explained
tion of THE SOCIETY OF NAVALARCHITECTSANDMARINEENGINEERS. later herein. When these expenses are considered, the per-
20%
30%
Table 1 Propeller blade manufactured with NC machining at author's
company 40
50~
Ship/Class Number Produced
60%
MV Roger Blough 4
MV Shell America 8 70%
CG 47 Class 180
FFG 7 Class (U.S. Navy) 90 80%
FFG 7 Class (Australian Navy) 5
FFG 7 Class (Spanish Navy) 15
LSD 41 Class 45
MCM 1 Class 90
T-AO 187 Class 32
TOTAL 469 100%
\ , FLANGESURFACE/SMALL RADIUS
TANGENCYPOINT
tory of the cutter paths for each region (or patch) of the blade
specified by the programmer. This process is an interactive
one and relies heavily on the experience and skill of the NC
Fig. 3 Spline definition of hydrodynamic surface
programmer to come up with the optimal combination of
cutter and machine path. Care must be taken to ensure t h a t
the cutter selected works properly over the path in question.
smoothness is checked in all directions by running full-scale For example, on concave surfaces the effective cutter radius
plots, and any discontinuities discovered are dealt with by must not exceed the smallest surface radius present or extra
the addition or deletion of splines in the offending region. material will be removed even though the programming is
The potential machining conflicts typically occur where fil- otherwise correct. When the c u t t e r / p a t h selection is com-
let surface and blade surface definitions meet and care must plete, a "post-processor" is used to convert them into the
be taken to see that they do not overlap. The consequence commands used by the NC machining equipment and tapes
of such an overlap is that part of the fillet area could be are then punched. Note that, in most cases, both ~roughing"
unintentionally machined off. and ~final" passes are programmed.
Once the programmer is satisfied with the surface defi- The choice of NC machine to be used for blade manufac-
nition, the next step is to determine the machine paths and ture is an additional consideration of the programming pro-
cutter selection. Here the goal is to choose a combination cess. The programmer has both three-axis (Fig. 8) and five-
that machines the surface to the desired accuracy with the axis (Fig. 9) NC milling machines to choose from (see Table
greatest efficiency. Note that '~efficiency" means maximum 2) and a number of factors are evaluated to select the ma-
material removal in the minimum amount of time. In gen- chine. The envelope of volume the machine must accom-
eral, the leading and trailing edges are machined with span- modate is often much larger than the physical size and shape
wise cutter paths while faces are cut with chordwise paths. of the blade itself because space for working clearance, cut-
The CAD system is again used to develop the actual trajec- ter retraction distances, and fixturing must be provided. The
Y Y
,%~.~,c=,. ,0 N
TAOL[ "~"~""'~~
Fig. 7 Merge of fillet and hydrodynamic surface definition ometry features (such as leading edges) can be done most
efficiently on a five-axis machine. Frequently, certain fea-
tures will be cut on the five-axis machine and the remaining
size factor often dictates the use of either a single setup on less-complex surfaces on the three-axis machine. Note that
a five-axis machine (which has greater cutter travel and the production schedule and workload in the blade machin-
reach) or multiple setups on a three-axis machine. Typically, ing facility play a part in machine selection. In practice, the
the five-axis machine is chosen for large production runs be- best equipment to do the job is not always available in time
cause the complication of additional setups can be avoided, to meet delivery, and the next best alternative is chosen.
and because the two additional machining axes available al- As in all production operations, a problem of one sort or
low for optimum cutter orientation everywhere on the sur- another inevitably arises during the machining process. One
face. The latter allow for face mills rather than ball mills to such difficulty is casting flaws which require repair. These
be used, making the width of each machining pass greater flaws are typically voids, porosity, or inclusions that were
and thus enhancing efficiency. The complexity of the surface not apparent during the inspection of the raw casting and
to be machined is an additional factor in that certain ge- are usually found in the edge (leading or trailing) and flange
area. Repair is straightforward--excavation of the affected
region until good material is found, followed by a weld re-
pair. The best way to avoid additional welding problems is
to verify that the casting has the correct chemical compo-
sition, thus ensuring good weldability.
Another related production challenge occurs on blades
where the design calls for an extensive amount of welding
to include a specific feature. If this welding is done at an
intermediate stage (that is, before the ~final" machining pass),
distortion of some sort is almost a certainty. Here again, the
~ SPI ll~l.E skill and experience of the NC programmer comes into play
when he estimates the distortion effects and adjusts the NC
programming to ensure that all geometry features end up
1116 TNK( in the proper location.
It is important here to mention the staff of backup per-
sonnel required to keep complicated NC machines operating.
At the most basic level, all the tooling (cutters and mills)
must be inspected for wear and general condition and be kept
in proper tolerance. More important, the performance of a
given NC program on a given machine must be constantly
evaluated for any trend toward greater deviation from plan
requirements (although still within allowable tolerances)
which could indicate machine wear. (In such a situation, the
program can be adjusted to again achieve previous perfor-
mance.) Equally important are the personnel who operate
and maintain the machines. Operators must possess an above-
Fig, 8 Lucas 3-axis machine average knowledge of NC machining and undergo specific
Crossrail--
adjustable type shown
(fixed rail available)
Pendant station
Masterhead
Dual worktables
(single table w/pallet changer available)
\ \ "%~%%
\ Automatic tool
checking station
uses laser technology to obtain extremely accurate mea- angular spacing and blade-to-blade ~coordinate in space con-
surements of geometry of surface. The system is completely formance" are of interest. Note that the latter refers to how
portable and eliminates the need for cumbersome propeller well a given point on each blade falls on the same radius
blade gages or other equally cumbersome inspection fix- and same plane of rotation.
tures. To date, no meaningful comparison of hand-finished ver-
The new blade polishing bay is designed to keep the blade sus NC machined blades in a local coordinate system exists.
machining center free of grinding dust. Experience had in- The difficulty is t h a t very precise plots of the as-manufac-
dicated that this was a major source of trouble in the elec- tured leading edges, trailing edges, and tips must exist for
tronic systems of the NC machines. The area is closed off a number of NC and hand-finished blades. Presently, such
and ventilated through filters to the outside. The work space a database has not been developed because one rarely finds
is also larger than that previously available. sufficient quantities of both NC and hand-finished blades of
aPlus tolerance is plus 0.031 + 1.25% of m a x i m u m thickness; minus tolerance is 1/2 of plus. Thickness data reflect accuracy of airfoil
shape at a given radius.
NOTE: The above reflects gross movement of blade in space as well a local deviations.
a t r e n d toward better blade-to-blade repeatability and better the latter deviate less from plan dimensions and have better
conformance to p l a n r e q u i r e m e n t s t h a t is achievable with repeatability.
NC machining. In closing, it should be recognized t h a t m a n y u n a n s w e r e d
questions regarding NC m a c h i n i n g of propeller blades re-
C l o s i n g remarks main. For example, the effects of various NC m a c h i n i n g pa-
rameters such as pass width, cusp height, pass orientation
The i n t e n t of this paper has been to a c q u a i n t the reader to flow, and global tolerances on hydrodynamic performance
with NC m a c h i n i n g of ship propeller blades from the m a n - are not known. Research projects t h a t systematically inves-
ufacturer's point of view. The production efficiency, accu- tigate the hydrodynamic and cost implications of each such
racy, and repeatability characteristics of this type of ma- m a c h i n i n g p a r a m e t e r are needed in order to make NC ma-
c h i n i n g make it most attractive to the propeller builder, who c h i n i n g as cost effective as possible.
has been called upon in recent years to produce increasingly
complex designs to progressively closer tolerances. Program-
m i n g for NC m a c h i n i n g is a complex process which relies on References
the skill and experience of the p r o g r a m m i n g personnel to 1 Ridley, D. E., "New NC Blade Machining Facility," SNAME, New
define the surface geometry to be machined and to select the England Section, April 1975.
optimal combination of tool path and cutter. Likewise, the 2 Klein, J. L., "A Rational Approach to Propeller Geometry," Pro-
operation and m a i n t e n a n c e of NC machines necessitate pellers 75, SNAME T&R Symposium, July 1975.
3 Norton, J, A. and Elliott, J. W., Jr., "Current Practices and Future
u n i q u e l y skilled individuals. Finally, comparisons between Trends in Marine Propeller Design and Manufacture," SNAME, Cali-
hand-finished blades and NC machined blades indicate t h a t fornia Sections Joint Spring Meeting, April 1987.