Systems and methods for laser ablation of a surface

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12124246-B2
Application number	US-202217651507-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 17, 2022
Priority date	Feb 17, 2022
Publication date	Oct 22, 2024
Grant date	Oct 22, 2024

Abstract

An apparatus, method and computer-readable storage medium are provided for laser ablation of a structural part. The method includes accessing a digital model of the structural part, and tiling the digital model into tiles that correspond to respective regions of the structural part. The method includes determining discrete tool paths of a machine tool for respective ones of the tiles for laser ablation of the respective regions of the structural part. And the method includes generating instructions for the machine tool to perform the laser ablation of the structural part according to the discrete tool paths.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus for laser ablation of a structural part, the apparatus comprising:
a memory configured to store computer-readable program code; and
processing circuitry configured to access the memory, and execute the computer-readable program code to cause the apparatus to at least:
access a digital model of the structural part;
tile the digital model into tiles that correspond to respective regions of the structural part, wherein the structural part includes a plurality of components;
consolidate the plurality of components in the digital model to construct a surface representation of the structural part, wherein the surface representation is tiled in the digital model, and wherein the surface representation of one or more of the respective regions are different from each other;
determine discrete tool paths of a machine tool for respective ones of the tiles for the laser ablation of the respective regions of the structural part, wherein the machine tool includes a laser; and
determine an orientation of the laser based on the surface representation of the respective regions as the machine tool travels the discrete tool paths to perform the laser ablation, wherein each orientation of the laser is selected to minimize deviation between a normal of a centroid of each of the respective regions, and a direction from the respective regions to the laser as the machine tool orients the laser according to a corresponding orientation for the respective one of the regions being ablated;
generate instructions for the machine tool to perform the laser ablation of the structural part according to the discrete tool paths.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 ,
wherein the plurality of components are consolidated to construct the surface representation in which components of the plurality of components are represented by respective single tensor product splines.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to execute the computer-readable program code to cause the apparatus to perform a smoothing of the surface representation before the surface representation is tiled, and in which a convolution matrix is applied to the surface representation.

4. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the tiling of the surface representation includes the apparatus caused to:
compute a Gauss map of the surface representation;
generate a contour graph of the surface representation based on the Gauss map; and
divide the surface representation into the tiles based on the contour graph.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the discrete tool paths include a tool path of the machine tool for the laser ablation of a region of the respective regions of the structural part, and the orientation of the laser is determined to minimize deviation between the normal of the centroid of the respective regions, and the direction from the respective regions to the laser as the machine tool travels an immediately preceding one of the discrete tool paths, and
wherein the instructions indicate positions of the machine tool that describe the tool path, and the orientation of the laser with respect to the region of the respective regions.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to execute the computer-readable program code to cause the apparatus to position the machine tool and orient the laser according to respectively the positions that define the tool path and the orientation indicated by the instructions, and cause the machine tool to perform the laser ablation of a region of the respective regions the structural part.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the orientation of the laser that is indicated by the instructions is a single orientation that is maintained across the regions of similar surface representations as the laser ablation of the respective regions is performed.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to execute the computer-readable program code to cause the apparatus to send the instructions to the machine tool to cause the machine tool to perform the laser ablation of the structural part.

9. A method of laser ablation of a structural part having a surface representation, the method comprising:
accessing a digital model of the structural part;
tiling the digital model into tiles that correspond to respective regions of the structural part;
constructing the surface representation of the structural part, wherein the surface representation of one or more of the respective regions are different from each other;
wherein tiling the digital model includes tiling the surface representation,
determining discrete tool paths of a machine tool for respective ones of the tiles for the laser ablation of the respective regions of the structural part, wherein the machine tool includes a laser; and
determining the discrete tool paths includes determining an orientation of the laser based on the surface representation of the respective regions as the machine tool travels the discrete tool paths to perform the laser ablation, wherein each orientation of the laser is selected to minimize deviation between a normal of a centroid of each of the respective regions, and a direction from the respective regions to the laser as the machine tool orients the laser according to a corresponding orientation for the respective one of the regions being ablated;
generating instructions for the machine tool to perform the laser ablation of the structural part according to the discrete tool paths.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the structural part includes a plurality of components, the method further comprises consolidating the plurality of components in the digital model to construct the surface representation of the structural part, and tiling the digital model includes tiling the surface representation of the components.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of components are consolidated to construct the surface representation in which components of the plurality of components are represented by respective single tensor product splines, and wherein the method further comprises performing a smoothing of the surface representation before the surface representation is tiled, and in which a convolution matrix is applied to the surface representation.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein tiling the surface representation includes:
computing a Gauss map of the surface representation;
generating a contour graph of the surface representation based on the Gauss map; and
dividing the surface representation into the tiles based on the contour graph.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the discrete tool paths include a tool path of the machine tool for the laser ablation of a region of the respective regions of the structural part, and the orientation of the laser is determined to minimize deviation between the normal of the centroid of the respective regions, and the direction from the respective regions to the laser as the machine tool travels an immediately preceding one of the discrete tool paths.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein the discrete tool paths include a tool path of the machine tool for the laser ablation of a region of the respective regions of the structural part, and the instructions indicate positions of the machine tool that describe the tool path, and the orientation of the laser with respect to the respective regions.

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein the method further comprises positioning the machine tool and orienting the laser according to respectively the positions that define the tool path and the orientation i

Assignees

• Boeing Co

Inventors

• Cai Fei
• Thunemann Paul Z
• Buttrick James N
• Grandine Thomas A
• Murray Natalie G

Classifications

• G05B19/4188

  characterised by CIM planning or realisation · CPC title

• B23K26/36

  Removing material (B23K26/55, B23K26/57 take precedence) · CPC title

• B23K2101/006

  Vehicles · CPC title

• G05B19/41885

  characterised by modeling, simulation of the manufacturing system · CPC title

• G05B2219/45165

  Laser machining · CPC title