General Electric Company

Richard Roy Worthing, Jr

Jinjie Shi

Joseph Edward Hampshire

Curtis Alan Johnson

Heinz Jaster

Edward Brittain Stokes

D Sangeeta

Himanshu B Vakil

Warren Davis Grossklaus, Jr

Howard John Farr

Keith Humphries Betscher

Thomas J Cartier, Jr

Alexander S Allen

Roger Dale Wustman

Mark Alan Rosenzweig

Thomas Froats Broderick

William Clarke Brooks

John Matthew Powers

Lyle Timothy Rasch

Glen Charles Fedyk

Brian Harvey Pilsner

Mark Dean Pezzutti

Lawrence Joseph Roedl

James Douglas Risbeck

Hongqing Sun

Michael Howard Rucker

Nicholas Shawn Woodard

Albert King

John Louis Cupito

Shannon Lynette Cismoski

A build plate-clamping assembly may include a work station having a build plate-receiving surface and a lock-pin extending from the build plate-receiving surface of the work station. The lock-pin may include a hollow pin body, a piston disposed within the hollow pin body, with the piston axially movable from a retracted position to an actuated position, and a plurality of detents, with the plurality of detents radially extensible through respective ones of a plurality of detent-apertures in the hollow pin body responsive to the piston having been axially moved to the actuated position. A methods of working on workpieces may include lockingly engaging a build plate at a first work station, performing a first work-step, releasing the build plate from the first work station, lockingly engaging the build plate at a second work station, and performing a second work-step. An additive manufacturing system may include a vision system with a first build plate-receiving surface and an additive manufacturing machine with a second build plate-receiving surface.

Build plate clamping-assembly and additive manufacturing systems and methods of additively printing on workpieces

A method of additively printing an extension segment on a workpiece includes pretreating a workpiece-interface of the workpiece using an energy beam emitted from an energy beam source of an additive manufacturing machine, providing a pretreated workpiece-interface having received a pretreatment, with the pretreatment remediating an aberrant feature of the workpiece and/or the workpiece-interface. The method further includes additively printing an extension segment on the pretreated workpiece-interface using an energy beam emitted from the energy beam source of the additive manufacturing machine. The aberrant feature includes one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface having been determined from a digital representation of the workpiece-interface captured by a vision system. The pretreatment includes heat-conditioning at least a portion of the workpiece-interface including the one or more aberrant regions of the workpiece-interface.

Additive manufacturing systems and methods of pretreating and additively printing on workpieces

A tooling assembly and method of aligning a plurality of components for a repair process in an additive manufacturing machine includes positioning the plurality of components such that a repair surface of each of the plurality of components contacts an alignment plate, e.g., under the force of gravity or using biasing members. The method further includes surrounding the alignment plate with containment walls to define a reservoir around the plurality of components and dispensing a fill material, such as wax or a potting material, into the reservoir which is configured for fixing a relative position of the plurality of components when the fill material is solidified.

Tooling assembly and method for aligning components for a powder bed additive manufacturing repair process

Additive manufacturing systems, methods, and computer readable media may be configured to perform a calibration. Calibrating an additive manufacturing system may include comparing a digital representation of one or more calibration marks to a calibration-CAD model that includes one or more model calibration marks, and applying a calibration adjustment to one or more CAD models based at least in part on the comparison. The digital representation of the one or more calibration marks may have been obtained using a vision system, and the one or more calibration marks may have been printed on a calibration surface according to the calibration-CAD model using an additive manufacturing machine. The calibration adjustment may be configured to align the one or more CAD models with one or more coordinates of the additive manufacturing system.

Additive manufacturing systems and methods of calibrating for additively printing on workpieces

An additive manufacturing machine includes a build platform being movable along a build direction and a powder supply assembly for dispensing additive powder above a build plane. A recoating assembly is used for spreading the additive powder into a build layer on the powder bed. The recoating assembly includes a support beam that slidably supports a recoater blade and moves along a recoater direction over the powder bed. A blade positioning mechanism adjusts the vertical position of the recoater blade in response to measurements from a sensing device which measures a tip clearance between the recoater blade and the build plane. The tip clearance may be measured along the length of the recoater blade while stationary and while moving along the recoater direction to obtain a smooth and level layer of additive powder.

Recoating assembly for an additive manufacturing machine

An additive manufacturing machine for repairing a component includes a build platform that supports the component and a powder dispensing assembly for selectively depositing additive powder over the build platform. A powder seal assembly includes a powder support plate positioned above the build platform and defining an aperture for receiving the component without contacting the component. A clamping mechanism is movable relative to the powder support plate and defines a void for receiving a resilient sealing element around the aperture. An actuating mechanism, such as bolts or a linear actuator, moves the clamping mechanism toward the powder support plate to deform the resilient sealing element until the resilient sealing element contacts and forms a seal with the component.

Powder seal assembly for decreasing powder usage in a powder bed additive manufacturing process

Methods of additively printing an extension segment on a workpiece may include pretreating a workpiece-interface of a workpiece using an energy beam from an additive manufacturing machine, providing a pretreated workpiece-interface having received a pretreatment, with the pretreatment remediating an aberrant feature of the workpiece and/or the workpiece-interface. Such methods may additionally include additively printing an extension segment on the pretreated workpiece-interface using the energy beam from the additive manufacturing machine. Exemplary additive manufacturing system for printing an extension segment on a workpiece may include a controller operably coupled to a vision system and an additive manufacturing machine.

An additive manufacturing system may include a controller operably coupled to a vision system and an additive manufacturing machine. The controller may be configured to determine a workpiece-interface of each of a plurality of workpieces from one or more digital representations of one or more fields of view having been captured by a vision system and determining one or more coordinates of the workpiece-interface of respective ones of the plurality of workpieces, and to transmit one or more print commands to an additive manufacturing machine so as to additively print a plurality of extension segments on the workpiece-interface of respective ones of the plurality of workpieces, with the one or more print commands having been generated based at least in part on the one or more digital representations of the one or more fields of view.

Additive manufacturing systems and methods of additively printing on workpieces

Provided are workpiece-assemblies, and systems and methods for aligning a plurality of workpieces with a build plane. A system may include an alignment plate, one or more elevating blocks, and a workpiece-assembly. A workpiece-assembly may include a build plate that has a plurality of workpiece docks, a plurality of workpiece shoes that have a slot configured to receive a portion of one or more workpieces respectively inserted or insertable into the plurality of workpiece docks, a plurality of biasing members respectively situated or situatable between the build plate and the plurality of workpiece shoes so as to exert a biasing force upon the workpiece shoes, and one or more clamping mechanisms coupled or couplable to the build plate and operable to secure the plurality of workpiece shoes within the respective workpiece docks.

Workpiece-assembly and additive manufacturing systems and methods of additively printing on workpieces

An additive manufacturing system may include a controller operably coupled to a vision system and an additive manufacturing machine. The controller may be configured to determine in a library-CAD model, a nominal model-interface traversing a nominal model corresponding to a workpiece, to compare the nominal model-interface of the library-CAD model to a digital representation of a workpiece-interface of the workpiece, where the digital representation has been obtained using the vision system, and to generate a model of an extension segment based at least in part on the nominal model-interface, with the model of the extension segment being configured to be additively printed on the workpiece-interface of the workpiece.

Additive manufacturing systems and methods of generating CAD models for additively printing on workpieces

An automated welding system includes a mounting platform configured to receive an object, a welding tool, an imaging device configured to acquire at least one image associated with the object, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive the at least one acquired image, analyze at least one pixel in the at least one acquired image, identify, based upon the analyzing, an area to be welded in the at least one acquired image, wherein the area to be welded includes a defect, and generate, based upon the identifying, control instructions for controlling at least one of the mounting platform and the welding tool to weld the area to be welded.

Systems and methods for automated welding

An automated welding system includes a mounting platform, a welding tool, an imaging device configured to acquire data associated with an object, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive the acquired data, determine an area to be welded in the acquired data, retrieve stored master model data associated with the object, and compare the acquired data to the stored master model data to identify a master model area in the acquired data. The controller is also configured to mask the master model area in the acquired data, such that the master model area is excluded from the area to be welded, and generate control instructions for controlling at least one of the mounting platform and the welding tool to weld the area to be welded.

A method of repairing damaged airfoils. The method comprises the steps of stripping thermal barrier coatings from the airfoil. After the coatings are removed, cracks are removed from the airfoil. Cracks that appear in the bond coat area over the airfoil fillet portion are removed by locally grit blasting the fillet portion of the airfoil. This operation also results in locally removing the bond coating from the fillet portion. Cracks and other damage sustained by the airfoil tip are removed and replaced by welding superalloy material. The airfoil then may be cleaned by thermal etching. The airfoil is then placed in a plating tool permitting preferential plating of airfoil areas from which plating has been removed. After plating, the airfoil is then heat treated to diffuse the platinum coating with the superalloy substrate materials. The diffusion heat treated airfoil is aluminided by any aluminiding process, forming a PtAl coating.

Growing community of inventors

Liberty Township, OH, United States of America

Richard Roy Worthing, Jr