CNC Turbine Blade Grinding, Polishing and Finishing Machine
The SPE 6 CNC is a high-precision machine tool for turbine blade grinding, polishing and finishing in aerospace and power generation applications. It is designed for aircraft engine turbine blades, compressor blades, industrial gas turbine blades, steam turbine blades, guide vanes and buckets.
Using six interpolating CNC axes and a pressure-controlled floating axis, the SPE keeps the abrasive belt perpendicular to the turbine airfoil surface. This ensures repeatable stock removal, excellent surface quality and high profile accuracy on complex blade geometries.
Typical applications include turbine blade manufacturing after milling, edge polishing, coating preparation, aerofoil finishing and controlled removal of surface irregularities on titanium and nickel-based blades.
Technical advantages of the SPE 6 CNC turbine blade finishing machine
The SPE 6 CNC is designed for repeatable turbine blade finishing where profile accuracy, edge quality and controlled abrasive pressure are critical.
The six interpolating axes and programmable floating pressure axis ensure that the contact wheel remains perpendicular to the blade surface throughout the full airfoil geometry.
This is particularly important for turbine blade manufacturing after milling, where constant stock removal directly affects aerodynamic quality and coating performance.
Benefits of the SPE process include:
- Constant quality of blades
- Impeccable surface quality
- Highly reproducible and repeatable process
- Easy to program by means of off-line software
- Significant savings in a 5-axis milling process through balancing of process.
- Work relief in particular with heavy blades.
- Precise polishing and profiling of leading and trailing edges
- Perfect solution for turbine blades manufacturing
Gas turbine compressor blade in SPE machine tool.
Why turbine blade manufacturers choose CNC instead of robotic polishing systems
Unlike robotic polishing systems, the SPE is based on a rigid CNC machine tool concept with a fixed coordinate system.
This offers major advantages for turbine blade production:
- stable positioning of the blade
- repeatable material removal
- no continuous coordinate correction required
- compatibility with standard machine tool fixtures
- reliable CAD/CAM programming using Siemens Sinumerik One
For turbine OEM production this results in higher repeatability and process stability.
SPE airfoil grinding and polishing machine tool.
Materials processed on the SPE 6 CNC turbine blade finishing machine
The SPE turbine blade finishing machine is suitable for a wide range of aerospace and energy materials:
- titanium alloys
- nickel-based alloys and superalloys
- chromium-nickel steels
- stainless steels
- non-ferrous metals
The wet belt grinding process ensures cooling of the blade surface, reduces the risk of thermal damage and helps contain harmful grinding dust.
Surface quality improvement after turbine blade milling
One of the major benefits of the SPE process is the improvement of blade surface quality after upstream milling.
Typical improvements:
- reduction of scallop marks
- improved roughness values
- reduced measuring effort
- optimized preparation before coating
A typical compressor blade example achieves a surface improvement from Ra 3.2 to Ra 0.5.
Surface roughness levels achieved with the SPE 6 CNC
Typical surface roughness requirements in turbine blade manufacturing range from Ra 1.2 µm (47.2 µin) to Ra 0.6 µm (23.6 µin) for steam turbine blades, and from Ra 0.6 µm (23.6 µin) down to Ra 0.4 µm (15.7 µin) for gas turbine blades, guide vanes and aircraft engine blades.
Under production acceptance conditions, the SPE 6 CNC achieved surface finishes down to Ra 0.12 µin (0.003 µm) using a two-step abrasive process.
The first step removes milling marks using structured abrasive belts such as A45, followed by ultra-fine finishing with A16 Trizact belts to obtain super-finished blade surfaces while maintaining profile accuracy.
Such a process can reduce or eliminate downstream finishing operations in selected turbine blade production environments.
Siemens Sinumerik One control and CAD/CAM integration
The SPE 6 CNC uses Siemens Sinumerik One control and supports fast NC program creation through CAD/CAM software.
Advantages include:
- standard industrial CNC platform
- easy operator acceptance
- fast program generation from 3D data
- high repeatability in serial blade production
- optional adaptive processing based on measuring data
Customer benefits of the SPE 6 CNC turbine blade polishing machine
- constant blade quality
- excellent and repeatable surface finish
- highly reproducible material removal
- reduced manual grinding effort
- easy programming through offline software
- savings in upstream 5-axis milling processes
- controlled polishing of leading and trailing edges
- coolant-based process for thermal protection and dust control
- proven machine concept for turbine OEM applications worldwide
Production benefits of CNC turbine blade finishing include:
- improved repeatability compared with manual polishing
- reduced measuring effort after polishing
- shorter milling cycles through balanced stock removal
- consistent blade quality across multiple rows
Trailing edge finishing of turbine blade in wet CNC grinding process
Blade profile measurement using Hexagon 3D Form Inspect after polishing
Polishing and finishing radius, transition and tri-plane surface of a turbine blade.
Integrated CMM blade measurement inside SPE 6 CNC machine
Highly twisted gas turbine blade finishing during 6-axis interpolation
Hexagon 3D inspection result after turbine blade polishing on SPE 6 CNC
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