Reverse engineering vertical cooling water pump

Customer requirement:

There is often no 3D planning data available for old cooling water pumps. This was precisely the problem faced by one of our customers who wanted to optimize the pump, including the construction of a new part.

The order was for the measurement of several pump components and the parametric creation of the corresponding CAD model. The CAD model was to be fully parametric and further editable for the customer to enable the manufacture of the further developed pump components.

The cooling water pump is a vertical pipe pump and is 6 meters long when installed. The cooling water pump is one of several pumps that ensure the supply of cooling water to a power plant. The cooling water for the power station is taken from a nearby river.

The vertical pipe pump consists of 8 larger pump components that are to be further developed and optimized, which is why the reverse engineering method was chosen for data generation given the required precision. Furthermore, the 3D model offers the preference of optimally adapting the design of the pump components to the required functionality.

"Our requirements for the optimization of the vertical tubular casing pump require a precise 3D model based on scan data. The solution offered by sigma3D GmbH was the perfect solution."

- GVT - Gesellschaft für Vakuum-Technik mbH, Philipp Feld, Project Manager -

Measuring task:

First, the pipe pump was disassembled into its individual parts. As the 3D scan detects any contamination, the surfaces of the components are cleaned and prepared for the 3D scan.

The pump components are measured using a combination of two measuring systems. First, a measuring point grid is determined on the component. The measuring points are signalized with measuring marks. A photogrammetry system from Hexagon AICON ETALON GmbH is used to coordinate the measurement marks. The measurement marks form the basis for the orientation of the individual images taken by the ATOS 5 scan camera from Carl Zeiss GOM Metrology GmbH.

For each individual measurement, the scan camera projects a stripe pattern onto the object surface using a digital projector. This stripe pattern is then captured by two cameras. The ATOS software calculates the 3D coordinates of up to 12 million object points per measurement within seconds. The measurement marks from the photogrammetry measurement are automatically recognized and the individual image is transformed into the component coordinate system. The object points are then meshed to form a polygonal model. The result is a 3D data set in stl format.

Using a scan camera and the polygonal model as the basis for the reverse engineering process, a parametric 3D solid model was created for each pump component.

Result:

The 3D models created on the basis of the physical pump components are a fully-fledged design result. The component geometry can still be modified afterwards thanks to the parametric structure of the CAD data, which gives the customer longer-term modeling options.

Furthermore, the customer can use the 3D model created to optimally adapt the design of the pump components to the required functionality and then derive 2D production drawings for new production.