Implementation of the process chain from point data acquisition to rapid tooling of a ship propeller

In the ship building industry, it is often required to manufacture complex shapes such as propellers for the development of a new ship propulsion system. Since these are obliged to a number of changes in the course of optimization process, several propeller prototypes have to be manufactured during the development stage. In this paper, an alternative way of manufacturing functional prototypes of propellers is investigated by using reverse engineering and rapid tooling techniques.