Turbine Blades Forging: Forging And Processing Methods Of Blades

Turbine Blades Forging: Forging And Processing Methods Of Blades

The turbine blades are some of the crucial components in the turbine shaft. They are the parts that play a key role in the conversion of energy. In fact, they are said to be the heart of the turbine. These machine parts’ formation can be carried out in several methods, but forging is growing as the most people methods.

There are different forging processes you can use for the making of the turbine blades. In this paper, we are going to look at some of these molding processes. Each of the processes offers different effects on the blade and could as well affect the quality. We will look at four of the main blade forging processes.

1. Fine Forging

Fine forging is a forging process distinguished by the size of the machining margin. This kind of forging is done with a one-sided machining margin ranging between 0.5mm and 1.5mm. The forged blades are very fine and do not a lot of machining. In fact, machining with leaf roots, leaf crowns, or just the incoming steam sides will be enough. Just make sure that that leaf body surface is polished, and the part may not require finishing work.

There are many benefits that come with the fine forging method, and one of them is complete metal flow. This is a very crucial factor if you are looking at achieving harder turbine blades. Fine forging also produces fine grain size, which is crucial when hardening machine parts. Other good properties that you can get from fine forging include better material utilization and reducing machining hours.

2. Small Residual Forging

The small residual forging is one of the forgings with a one-sided margin of between 1 to 2mm. At the same time, this forging offers a tolerance of up to 2mm. The general process of small residual forging is pretty simple and also less expensive. You just need to forge the billet, do a bit of the controlled surface milling and finish with the fine lighting. The process is quire and will take you just a few minutes to finish.

The small residual forging process has numerous benefits, including good billet toughness. The material produced can withstand demanding conditions hence more durable. The billet produced also offers higher efficiency. The material utilization rate also better than that of ordinary forging. This means less wastage in terms of the materials. the overall cost of producing the parts will also go down.

3. Precision Level Forging

The precision level forging is another popular forging technique for the construction of turbine blades. The method has been growing popular because of the numerous advantages it offers. This kind of forging is done using a one-sided margin ranging between 3mm and 3mm and offers a tolerance of up to 3mm. The process is good for optimizing designs of the turbine blade blanks. It is one of the forging technologies that provide a very goof blanks distribution.

There are so many advantages that precision level forging offers in turbine blade forging. One of them is high residual control. Due to the high precision in manufacturing, the amount of materials that go to waste is significantly reduced. The other advantage is free forging control of blade size. These are just some of the reasons why you need to consider precision level forging.

4. Ordinary Forging

The normal or ordinary forging method can offer a tolerance of up to 4.5mm with a one-sided margin. The normal forging margin is anywhere between 4.5 to 6mm, and the method uses free forging blanks. There are so many benefits that come with this forging method to make it popular for turbine blades.

Ordinary forging has a lower requirement for raw materials compared to other forging methods. The heating and design needs are also lower, making it more affordable. The forgings are also easy to form, but there could be a problem with precision. The low material utilization and longer machining are some of the limitations that come with normal forging.

The forging of the turbine blades is very crucial because their quality determines turbine efficiency. These are some of the four forging methods that can be used. Ordinary forging should be the last option because its quality might be lower.