The Boeing Company

Howard Thomas Rolleston

Matthew Howard Cawthorne

Michael J Deluca

Andrew Leung

A method for repairing a crack in a structure includes mounting a manifold to the structure around the crack. The structure has a nonplanar surface contour that surrounds the crack. The manifold has a base portion, a cover portion, and a plug. The base portion has a grip surface configured to conform to the nonplanar surface contour of the structure. The cover portion is connected to the base portion, and has an injection port and a vent port in fluid communication with a channel aligned to the crack. The injection port transfers a bonding material into and out of the channel. The plug closes and opens the vent port. The method includes filling the channel with the bonding material to direct the bonding material into the crack, and draining the bonding material from the manifold.

In situ crack repair in structures

A system for additive manufacturing a three-dimensional object includes pre-fabricated supports arrangeable to support the three-dimensional object during additive manufacturing; and a computer configured to at least: access a computer geometric model of the three-dimensional object, and geometric parameters of the pre-fabricated supports; and generate an arrangement of the pre-fabricated supports with respective coordinates in a coordinate system, to support the three-dimensional object in the coordinate system during additive manufacturing, the computer being configured to generate the arrangement based on the computer geometric model of the three-dimensional object and the geometric parameters of the pre-fabricated supports, the computer being configured to generate different arrangements of the pre-fabricated supports for different three-dimensional objects having different computer geometric models.

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Glen Mills, PA, United States of America

Howard Thomas Rolleston