Novel Reverse Engineering approach for maintenance, repair and overhaul applications towards composite repairing by Additive Manufacturing technique

This project focuses on the repair of components made of plastic and composite materials through innovative reverse engineering and 3D printing techniques. The study involves the definition and simulation of damage on pieces printed in PLA, followed by a digitization phase to create a digital replica of the damage. This replica is used to design a complementary patch to the damaged surface, which will be 3D printed with the same material and subsequently applied to the damaged component via adhesive bonding. The reverse engineering phase involves scanning the damage and extracted pieces with non-contact techniques, creating a quick and easy method for creating the new patch without using the nominal CAD. After the patch is printed, the process continues with post-processing and a new digitization phase to verify the accuracy of the repair. We then proceed with the adhesive bonding and quality control of the adhesion, which includes static tensile tests carried out in parallel with the Digital Image Correlation for the study of local deformations and SEM study on the pieces subjected to failure. Finally, the latest iteration of the project involves the use of the Markforged printer for the production of continuous fiber composite materials. This work aims to improve the effectiveness of composite repairs by pioneering the metrological study of composite repairing, developing a verification and validation process based on 3D printing technology and reverse engineering, with potential applications in the aeronautical industry and in advanced aircraft maintenance of critical components.