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The United States of America As Represented by the United States

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLC

The United States of America As Represented by United States Department

Otis Raymond Walton

Hubert Joachim Vollmer

Richard G Mallon

Arthur E Lewis

Robert L Braun

Christopher Dreyer

Alexander M Rubenchik

Manyalibo Joseph Matthews

Saad A Khairallah

Gabe Guss

Wayne E King

Edward Riedel

Ali Ismail Abdel-Hadi

Eric B Herbold

A laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing system having a powder dispenser that provides powder layers on a build platform; a laser fusion system that fuses the powder layers, wherein spatter particles are produce on the powder layers; and a powder bed sweeping system that sweeps the spatter particles from the powder layers. The powder bed sweeping system includes a brush that has bristles that contact the spatter particles and sweeps the spatter particles from the powder layers.

Additive manufacturing powder spreading technology to mitigate surface defects

An improved feeder/conveyor includes a flexible rotating open helix screw inside a cylindrical sheathing. A motor drive is attached to the flexible rotating open helix screw above at a delivery end, and such provides the rotational speeds necessary to generate the centrifugal and lifting forces necessary. The improvements include a conical bullnose tip as a feeder that attaches to the flexible rotating open helix screw with a curved and tapered support feeder gusset. Such attachment mechanically supports and aligns the conical bullnose tip to the distal end of the flexible rotating open helix screw and a central turning axis. A nose opening in the conical bullnose tip allows either exit or entry of material freely to or from the supply bed, depending on the conveying conditions.

Dry granular material feeder/conveyor for near-vertical lifting

An integrated granular-material scoop and near-vertical lifting feeder/conveyor includes special connections and skirts between a bullnose rotating scoop and an open-helical screw that provides the rotations and material lift and evacuation. A conical working-face of the bullnose rotating scoop has symmetrically distributed graters and vents to break loose and force-in granular material from natural deposits and cargo holds. The bullnose rotating scoop and the open-helical screw its attached to move the material into a continuous layer on the inside surface of an outer stationary sheathing. A motor drive attached to the open-helical screw above at the delivery end provides the lifting force necessary.

Granular material scoop and near-vertical lifting feeder/conveyor

A conical feeder is attached to a vertically conveying screw auger. The feeder is equipped with scoops and rotated from the surface to force-feed regolith the auger. Additional scoops are possible by adding a cylindrical section above the conical funnel section. Such then allows the unit to collect material from swaths larger in diameter than the enclosing casing pipe of the screw auger. A third element includes a flexible screw auger. All three can be used in combination in microgravity and zero atmosphere environments to drill and recover a wide area of subsurface regolith and entrained volatiles through a single access point on the surface.

Vertical-screw-auger conveyer feeder

A centrifugal sieve and method utilizes centrifugal force in rapidly-rotated cylindrical or conical screens as the primary body force contributing to size segregation. Within the centrifugal acceleration field, vibration and/or shearing flows are induced to facilitate size segregation and eventual separation of the fines from the coarse material. Inside a rotating cylindrical or conical screen, a separately-rotated screw auger blade can be used to transport material along the rotating cylinder or conical wall and to induce shearing in the material.

Centrifugal size-separation sieve for granular materials

An apparatus and a method include a pipe comprising a first end, a second end and an interior wall. The pipe is configured for rotation about an axis with a rotational rate sufficient for a cohesive material to remain stationary in a layer on the interior wall. A plurality of blades is configured for deflecting the cohesive material. Each of the blades includes a blade edge having a curvature corresponding to a portion of the interior wall. A support structure supports the blade edges with each of the blade edges proximate the interior wall and having an angle with respect to a plane perpendicular to the axis. An inlet apparatus feeds the cohesive material into the first end where a difference in rotational rate between the interior wall and the plurality of blades, and the angle determines a rate of conveyance of the cohesive material along the interior wall.

Apparatus and method for conveying cohesive materials

A cascading bed retorting process and apparatus in which cold raw crushed shale enters at the middle of a retort column into a mixer stage where it is rapidly mixed with hot recycled shale and thereby heated to pyrolysis temperature. The heated mixture then passes through a pyrolyzer stage where it resides for a sufficient time for complete pyrolysis to occur. The spent shale from the pyrolyzer is recirculated through a burner stage where the residual char is burned to heat the shale which then enters the mixer stage.

Apparatus for oil shale retorting

Process for oil shale retorting using gravity-driven solids flow and

A combustion heater for oil shale heats particles of spent oil shale containing unburned char by burning the char. A delayed fall is produced by flowing the shale particles down through a stack of downwardly sloped overlapping baffles alternately extending from opposite sides of a vertical column. The delayed fall and flow reversal occurring in passing from each baffle to the next increase the residence time and increase the contact of the oil shale particles with combustion supporting gas flowed across the column to heat the shale to about 650.degree.-700.degree. C. for use as a process heat source.

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Livermore, CA, United States of America

Otis Raymond Walton