Blast Cabinets Play a Key Role in Aircraft Maintenance and Repair

A three million square foot MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) facility in Atlanta, GA, Delta’s TechOps is where aircraft go for major servicing and repair. A massive operation, TechOps services 1,000 planes a year and runs 24/7.

Over 6,000 technicians, mechanics, and engineers maintain Delta’s fleet – as well as the aircraft of 150 customers, including other airlines, the military, and the U.S. Government (yes, Air Force One).

The facility also services and repairs complex and costly jet engines. With price tags of $32M, nothing is left to chance. Whole teams oversee their disassembly, cleaning, inspection, re-assembly, and final testing – with the entire operation taking up to two months or longer, depending.

Ensuring an aircraft is ready to fly is something everyone in the industry takes seriously – from pilots, mechanics, and engineers, to federal agencies, such as the FAA.

Detailed manuals list exactly when and how components and sub-systems are to be cleaned and checked for hairline fractures, breakages or other problems – and if needed, repaired.

Over the life of an aircraft, every single system and component is rebuilt or replaced according to detailed schedules.

Blast cabinets: Ideal for specific tasks, components

The numerous small components that comprise a jet engine, or an aircraft’s thousands of other sub-assemblies, require meticulous cleaning and surface treatment to remove corrosion, rust, oil and grease, and other contaminants.

An MRO facility like TechOps relies on many tools and machines to perform this critical function; these can include an abrasive blast room for very large parts, and one or more blast cabinets for smaller parts.

Blast cabinets can be tailored for tasks and components. A cabinet dedicated to specific parts can be configured to accommodate different media types and pressures – ensuring each part is treated according to strict requirements and maintains consistency and quality.

For example, a blast cabinet can be set up for a softer type of media, such as plastic, to clean delicate components at a lower pressure, while another cabinet is configured for harsher media, such as aluminum oxide, at higher pressures.

And, blast cabinets can be custom-configured to suit specialized applications: two cabinets can be bolted together to accommodate longer parts, or turntables, worktables, track extensions, and vertical doors can be added.

The other advantage of using a blast cabinet is ease of use: media changes are quick and easy and involve far less clean up than a blast room – an important consideration where MROs work efficiently to get a plane in the air again.

And too, blast cabinets require less space and infrastructure, and fewer safety protocols. Operators don’t have to suit up in protective gear – which saves time as well.

Used by aerospace companies such as GE Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and MRAS, and organizations such as the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force, Titan’s high-performance blast cabinets come as complete systems and are designed and manufactured in the USA.