Patent ID: 7725210

Claim:
A method of processing a turbine component having a plurality of cooling passages, the method comprising: i) preparing and storing a local reference coordinate system and determining first three-dimensional coordinates of a position of a cooling passage at an uncoated surface of the turbine component and an orientation of the cooling passage; ii) determining second three-dimensional coordinates of a plurality of reference points relative to the local reference coordinate system in a region of an outlet opening of the cooling passage using a movement of a robot with a distance sensor around the outlet opening, and storing the movement of the robot; iii) coating the turbine component; iv) repeating the robot movement stored in step ii) and determining the third three-dimensional coordinates of a plurality of further reference points on a surface of the coating of the turbine component and calculating a thickness of the coating applied in step iii); v) automatically preparing a laser processing program for the cooling passage, wherein the automatically preparing a laser processing program includes producing a volume model using the calculated thickness of the coating, and subdividing the volume model into a plurality of disk-shaped volume segments; and vi) guiding a pulsed laser beam according to the laser processing program over a surface of each of the disk-shaped volume segments so as to remove unwanted coating material from the cooling passages.