Case Study: American Blimp Corporation achieves nearly 90% cost reduction and improved quality in fan blade production with 3D Systems

ADC Reconstructs Custom Fan Blades For American Blimp with Geomagic Software

American Blimp Corporation faced a supply crisis when the original maker of its custom fan blades went out of business and a subsequent vendor — who owned the only scan file — closed suddenly, leaving the company unable to reproduce a critical, uniquely shaped part needed for engine cooling. They turned to Advanced Design Concepts (ADC), a firm specializing in reverse engineering, rapid prototyping and first-run manufacturing, to recreate the blade and produce injection molds that would fit existing hardware and preserve performance.

ADC scanned an original blade with a high-resolution Perceptron laser scanner, converted the ~2.2 million–point cloud into accurate digital models using Geomagic Wrap and Geomagic Control, and used those models for CAD/CAM and mold inspection. The resulting injection molds delivered higher quality, faster production, and a roughly 90% reduction in manufacturing costs.

American Blimp Corporation

Lance Nordby

Project Engineer