Using Light to Reverse-Engineer a Steam Turbine

A turbine manufacturer wanted to get more power out of hundreds of turbines that were originally built and installed in the 1950s. The basic idea was to use the original outer casing but upgrade the internal components such as the blades and diaphragm. All of the components of the turbine needed to be reverse-engineered so that computer aided design (CAD) models could be created and used as the basis to analyze and optimize the turbine design. The parts ranged from small components to the case, which is 11 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 8 feet tall, and weighs 30,000 pounds.