Sun, Mar 13, 2005
Two Established Tool Vendors Team Up To Ease Turbine
Inspections
Everest VIT and
Rhinestahl Corporation have compared two pre-existing products in a
novel way. Everest make Remote Visual Inspection equipment, which
looks to this non-technician like a fiber-optic borescope.
Borescopes are used to inspect things without taking them apart --
you look through a hole and see what you can see. Two advantages to
scoping an assembly rather than disassembling it for inspection are
pretty clear: the time savings on inspection, and the ability to
see the relationships of parts in situ.
Normally on a turbine rotor inspection, one mechanic carefully
turns the blades while another looks through the scope. The two
companies have created a marketing alliance that adds Rhinestahl's
FutureDrive remote turning tool to Everest VIT's XL Pro VideoProbe,
a flagship of Everest's line of remote inspection equipment. The
result is a video borescope that can be used by one man for turbine
borescope inspection.
The companies claim that this can not only reduce the man-hours
by half, only requiring one technician instead of two, but also
that the positive positioning control the intuitive handheld
control panel provides allows that one man to do the job with
higher accuracy and thoroughness in less time than two men did it
before. As a result the total savings -- in time, and in money --
is more than 50%. This is not to mention the increased likelihood
of the more thorough inspection identifying damage before it
becomes a catastrophic problem.
The control makes it easy to flag blades for supervisors'
attention or make note of any anomalies for future inspections.
With a video borescope, Everest VIT's XL Pro VideoProbe, the
technicians can actually store video of each blade of each disk --
and have it to compare at the next inspection.
The drive adapts to "all popular turbine engines," according to
Rhinestahl. And the control unit can be programmed with the engine
or engines you specify. If you develop a need to support a new
engine once you already have the unit, you don't need to send it
back for reprogramming -- it can be field-updated in as little as
15 minutes.
Everest's XLPro Plus is an enhanced version of the XLPro
VideoProbe and can record and playback over two hours of DVD format
MPEG2 video, or stream the video to another device via a USB2 port.
Data is saved on CompactFlash media.
Rhinestahl has previously offered its FutureDrive system with
other makers' inspection equipment, but not with the Everest VIT
video borescopes. The Rhinestahl/Everest VIT system is sold by
Everest VIT and is available now. The system has been tested and is
in use with major airline maintenance shops and large Part 145
Repair Stations.
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