Adaptive remanufacturing for freeform surface parts based on linear laser scanner and robotic laser cladding

• Published in: Robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing 2025-02, Vol.91, p.102855, Article 102855
• Main Authors: Ma, Wei, Hu, Tianliang, Zhang, Chengrui, Chen, Qizhi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptive remanufacturing; Freeform surface slicing; Industrial robot; Laser cladding; Linear laser scanner
• ISSN: 0736-5845
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rcim.2024.102855

•A systematic integration and noncontact calibration method of the linear laser scanner and robotic laser cladding system to realize the worn freeform surface on-site measurement and remanufacturing.•An optimized model aligning method weighted according to the adaptive surface segment to avoid the adverse effect of the big difference between the reverse and nominal model on the precision.•A novel repairing strategy based on the equidistant freeform surface slicing to overcome the drawbacks of the traditional repairing strategies on efficiency and quality.•An equivalent volume overlapping model for the curved surface based on the curvature distribution of freeform surface slicing to keep the thickness uniformity of repairing layers and reduce surface waviness. Freeform surface parts play a significant role in the aerospace industry, the mold- manufacturing industry and the automobile industry, and it is energy-saving, material-saving, time-saving and environmentally beneficial to remanufacture the damaged components to restore their functionality and performance. Due to the complex geometry of the freeform surface wear, the adaptive remanufacturing of freeform surface parts is confronted with challenges. In this paper, an adaptive remanufacturing method for freeform surface parts based on linear laser scanner and robotic laser cladding is proposed to realize the precise freeform surface measurement and optimized remanufacturing path generation. On the one hand, a systematic wear measurement and assessment method is proposed to precisely locate and quantify the wear. With the noncontact calibration of the laser scanner and industrial robot, the contour of the target surface is real-timely measured and the reverse model is efficiently constructed, which provides detailed 3D morphological information of the worn freeform surface for the latter wear analysis. Next, considering the considerable difference between the reverse model and the nominal model, a refined model aligning method weighted by surface wear segmentation is proposed to minimize the alignment error and, further, the difference entity to be additively manufactured is obtained by discrete model comparison. On the other hand, to cope with the unsatisfactory binding strength over the freeform surface basis and small fragments of the working path for the traditional plane or cylinder slicing method, a novel remanufacturing path generation method is proposed. Considering the curvature distribution of