Patent ID: 8876460

Claim:
A method for assembling a turbomachine, comprising: measuring a tops-on clearance between a rotor blade tip and an inner surface of a stator while an upper stator shell and a lower stator shell are assembled together, and a rotor is installed within an assembled stator; measuring a tops-off clearance between the rotor blade tip and the inner surface of a stator while the lower stator shell and the rotor are assembled together, and the upper stator shell is not affixed to the lower stator shell; determining a tops-on/tops-off shift, wherein the tops-on/tops-off shift is equal to a difference between the tops-on clearance and the tops-off clearance; assembling the lower stator shell; placing the rotor on the lower stator shell; adjusting a relative position of the stator and the rotor such that the rotor is offset from a desired rotor position relative to the stator by a distance equal to the tops-on/tops-off shift; and assembling the upper stator shell to the lower stator shell to form the assembled stator; wherein the measuring the tops off-clearance and the measuring the tops-on clearance is performed using a plurality of sensors and wherein the plurality of sensors are spaced such that either: one sensor is axially aligned with each of a plurality of stages of motor blades, or one sensor is axially aligned with every other stage of the plurality of stages of rotor blades.