General Electric Company

Gary Eugene Wheat

Terri Kay Brown

Nicholas Charles Palmer

Jon Conrad Schaeffer

Richard Ludwig Schmidt

Roger Dale Wustman

Terry K Brown

Steve E Bauer

Robert Eugene McCracken

Edward J Cove

Robert K Patterson

Linda R Crenshaw

Ching-Pang Lee

Joseph David Rigney

Jeffrey Allan Pfaendtner

Jim D Reeves

Matthew David Saylor

Timothy Riggs

Thomas Phillip Schumacher

Barry T Malone

Robert C Simmons

Ronald Dale Edwards

Frank Delano Mooney, Jr

Atul Natwerlal Shah

Gayle M Bowles

Robert E Mc Cracken

William L Sheyer

James R Moore

Kenneth Ray Hill, Jr

Steven Earl Bauer

A method for manufacturing a turbine nozzle assembly using a fixture includes providing a first position of the fixture, positioning at least one datum of the turbine nozzle assembly adjacent at least one datum location point on the fixture when the fixture is in the first position, coupling the turbine nozzle assembly to the fixture when the fixture is in the first position, rotating the fixture from the first position into a second position that facilitates manufacturing the turbine nozzle assembly, and performing a manufacturing process on the turbine nozzle assembly when the fixture is in the second position.

Methods and apparatus for manufacturing components

A method for introducing an inert carrier gas into a coating container used to provide a metallic coating on articles. The method includes introducing the inert carrier gas into the coating container as a plurality of carrier gas streams proximate the top of the coating container. The carrier gas streams are formed and introduced into the coating container before encountering a source material for the metallic coating, and each carrier gas stream is introduced so that the inert carrier gas at least initially moves within the coating container in a circular swirling fashion above and before encountering the source material and the article.

Gas distributor for vapor coating method and container

A system and method are provided for inspecting cooling holes of a completed, lasered, and deburred turbine airfoil. The cooling holes are covered with a very porous tape before placing the turbine airfoil into an air fixture that has a metered amount of fluorescent liquid dripped into the airline. The atomized fluorescent liquid flows through the turbine airfoil internal cavities, exiting through the open cooling holes, where it is absorbed by the porous tape. A pattern will appear on the tape surface, in the area of the open holes, indicative of the presence of not-through or plugged cooling holes.

Fluorescent inspection of airfoil cooling holes

An article having an internal passage therein and an internal article surface is coated by providing a coating slurry that is a mixture of a deposition source including a source of aluminum, a halide activator, and a flowable carrier comprising a flowable compound selected from the group consisting of a flowable organic compound and a flowable inorganic compound. There is no oxide dispersant in the coating slurry. The coating slurry is introduced into the internal passage and dried to remove at least a portion of the carrier therefrom and leave a dried coating material. The article surface in gaseous communication with the dried coating material is heated to form an aluminum-containing coating bonded to the article surface. Any residual dried coating material is removed by blowing compressed air through the internal passage.

Method for coating an internal surface of an article with an aluminum-containing coating

A gas distributor suitable for introducing a carrier gas at the top of a coating container used to provide a metallic coating on articles. The gas distributor includes a gas inlet and a gas outlet head in communication with the gas inlet for receiving a flow of gas from the gas inlet. A plurality of gas outlets through which the gas flow exits as a gas stream are spaced along the peripheral surface of the gas outlet head. A plurality of gas deflectors, each proximate to one of the gas outlets, at least initially direct the gas stream exiting the gas outlet in at least a generally centripetal path. This gas distributor can be used in vapor coating apparatus having a coating container, at least one holder for each article to be coated positioned within the coating container and below the gas outlet head of the gas distributor and at least one holder for the source of the metallic coating positioned within the coating container and below the gas outlet head of the gas distributor. A method is also provided for introducing the carrier gas as a plurality of carrier gas streams proximate the top of the coating container so that each carrier gas stream flows at least initially in at least a generally centripetal path, as well as a method for coating the articles with a metallic coating in the coating container.

An article is coasted by preparing a coating source having an aluminum halide, a fluoride or an iodide of a modifying element as a source of the modifying element, and a carrier gas. The modifying element is zirconium, hafnium, and yttrium, or combinations thereof. The coating source is contacted to the article, and the coating source and the article are heated to a coating temperature of at least about 1850&#xb0; F. for a period of time sufficient to permit aluminum and the modifying element to coat onto the surface of the article. The preferred fluorides of modifying elements are zirconium tetrafluoride and hafnium tetrafluoride.

Method for vapor phase aluminiding including a modifying element

Method to facilitate vapor phase coating of turbine airfoils. A dovetail receptacle receives the dovetails of a plurality of airfoils. The airfoils are separated by spacers with the airfoil dovetails sealed in a chamber of the receptacle to facilitate vapor phase coating of airfoil flowpath surfaces and platform upper surfaces of several airfoils simultaneously while masking the dovetail sections.

Method for masking multiple turbine components

A turbine blade is coated by first applying a particle-entrapped tip coating to the tip of the airfoil. An aluminum-containing coating is thereafter applied to the airfoil, including to the tip of the airfoil overlying the particle-entrapped tip coating. The aluminum-containing coating is applied by providing a source of aluminum contacting the airfoil that deposits aluminum onto the airfoil at a coating temperature, and heating the airfoil to the coating temperature so that the aluminum-containing coating is deposited onto the airfoil, and so that the aluminum-containing coating and the particle-entrapped tip coating are diffused into the turbine blade substrate. The step of applying the aluminum-containing coating occurs without substantial prior interdiffusing of the particle-entrapped tip coating with the tip of the airfoil as a separate step.

Method of applying a particle-embedded coating to a substrate

Apparatus and method to facilitate vapor phase coating of turbine airfoils. A dovetail receptacle receives the dovetails of a plurality of airfoils. The airfoils are separated by spacers with the airfoil dovetails sealed in a chamber of the receptacle to facilitate vapor phase coating of airfoil flowpath surfaces and platform upper surfaces of several airfoils simultaneously while masking the dovetail sections.

Apparatus and method for masking multiple turbine components

A method is provided for treating cooperating, juxtaposed substantially uncoated alloy substrate surfaces in preparation for brazing, for example an inner wall of the radially outer open end of a turbine engine blading member with the rim of an end plate or tip cap. The method includes treating at least one of the cooperating surfaces with a reducing gas comprising halogen gas for a time and at a temperature, for example 1-6 hours at 1650-1950&deg; F., sufficient to remove any surface debris, for example oxides, and to deplete the alloy substrate surface of the total of elements selected from Al and Ti to a level of less than about 1 weight %. Depletion is to a depth in the surface which avoids intergranular attack of the substrate alloy surface. For example, the depth is no greater than about 0.0015&Prime;. Then the cooperating surfaces are brazed together.

Method for preparing a plate rim for brazing

A method for accurately sizing and forming the cooling holes of an air-cooled gas turbine engine component on which a protective diffusion coating will be deposited. The method generally entails drilling a hole in a surface region of a substrate, and then measuring the thickness of any recast surface region surrounding the hole and created as a result of a portion of the surface region having melted and then resolidified. The thickness of the additive layer of the diffusion coating that will deposit on a corresponding recast surface region of the component is then predicted based on an inverse relationship determined to exist with the thickness of the recast surface region formed during drilling of the cooling hole. An appropriately-oversized hole can then be formed in the component so that, after depositing the diffusion coating on the component, the additive layer grows sufficiently within the hole to yield a cooling hole approximately having the required final diameter.

Method of sizing and forming a cooling hole in a gas turbine engine component

A tumble medium for surface treatment of an article having a first radiographic signature comprises material having a second radiographic signature different from the first radiographic signature sufficient to enable radiographic detection of the material as distinct from the article. The tumble medium is used in a method for treatment of a surface of an article including there through openings communicating with an interior of the article. After tumbling, the article is inspected by radiography to detect any tumble medium within the interior of the article.

Tumble medium and method for surface treatment

A substrate article is processed by masking a first portion of the substrate article with a maskant including a foil layer overlying and contacting the first portion of the substrate article, leaving a second portion of the substrate article exposed, and a mask layer overlying and contacting the foil layer. The mask layer may be formed of a mixture of aluminum oxide and metal powders or carbon. The masked substrate article is processed to deposit a coating, such as an aluminum coating, on the second portion of the substrate article, without removing the maskant. The substrate article may instead be masked by carbon without the underlying nickel layer. After coating, the substrate article may be further processed by brazing to the first portion of the substrate article.

Fabrication of articles having a coating deposited through a mask

A method for preparing a Ni base superalloy inner wall surface of a body open end, such as an end of a turbomachinery blade, and an end plate, such as a blade tip cap, for brazing together at a rim of the end plate includes electrochemically removing oxides from the inner wall surface. The end plate is prepared, at least at its rim, by first removing surface and subsurface oxides, for example by mechanical abrading or a combination of such abrading and acid cleaning. Then at least the rim is electroplated with Ni which is heated to diffuse the Ni into the rim substrate. This provides an improved combination of surfaces for brazing, for example with a Ni base brazing alloy. After brazing the rim to the inner wall, there is provided an article with an improved relatively low oxide brazed joint, including less than about 20 volume % oxides, and a plate rim of substantially Ni along with elements diffused from the brazing alloy and the rim.

Growing community of inventors

Madisonville, KY, United States of America

Gary Eugene Wheat