The repair of internal components is a challenging project in ship maintenance. Due to the large size of the equipment and part characteristics, which are usually custom-developed, the quick replication of required workpieces and acceleration of maintenance process has been an issue the industry is confronted with on a regular basis.

Taking the example of the dock water pump, let´s explore how this challenge can be faced precisely and efficiently be means of 3D digital technology.

Traditional methods of ship parts maintenance

1）Due to its high conductivity requirement, the dock water pump is large and has a curved structure. One traditional approach includes the manual measurement of the pump and the digital modeling based on the measurement results. The workload is not only huge, the digital duplicate also can´t be replicated precisely.

2) Another common method is taking two-dimensional photos and using these as a basis to model the parts digitally. This method, too, is prone to errors and does not guarantee the creation of a precise and reliable digital replica.

Ship parts measuring with 3D Metrology

A high-precision laser 3D scanner like the FreeScan UE can help to quickly scan the dock water pump and create an authentic digital copy of the object. Thanks to the relatively regular shape of the pump , the data acquisition process is fast and easy and a complete CAD model can be quickly reversed with high accuracy.

3D scanning: 20 minutes

Reverse design: 1 hour

Within an hour and a half, the complete and accurate CAD model data can be obtained.

3D scanning with the FreeScan UE helped to scan and inspect the 3D data of the dock water pump in a relatively short time in order to obtain reliable inspection results and speed up the overall work process.

In today’s digital high-speed development processes, access to complete 3D data is crucial for the repair and inspection of components. Having this data at hand is the key to an effective digital manufacturing workflow.

Key advantages of the FreeScan UE for this workflow include:

1. High precision
Measurement-level accuracy of 0.02mm, repeatable accuracy and stability to obtain accurate data for reverse design and inspection.

2. Small and flexible
The structure of industrial components is often very complex. FreeScan UE weighs only 750g, can be freely rotated inside the workpiece, and is light enough to obtain complete object data at fast pace.

3. Fast scanning
FreeScan UE´´s large field of view and the scanning speed of 1.02 million points per second empower an incredibly fast 3D data acquisition.