General Electric Company

Richard W Lober

Richard G Menzies

David Paul Mourer

Robert D Lillquist

Robert George Zimmerman, Jr

Joseph J Jackson

Joseph Hopkins

Apparatus for producing a metal powder includes a cooled hearth structure in which a metallic alloy is melted and a heat source above the hearth positioned to heat the melt in the hearth. The cooling of the hearth causes a protective hearth skull to form between the melt and the hearth itself. The hearth is placed within an environmental control chamber. A supply structure provides a continuous supply of the metallic alloy to the hearth structure from the exterior of the chamber. A metal powder producer is positioned to receive molten metal from the hearth, and a continuous stream of the molten alloy from the hearth is transferred to the metal powder producer. The transfer is accomplished by tipping the hearth or by teeming through an opening in the bottom of the hearth. The hearth structure can utilize two individual hearths, controllably arranged so that molten metal is drawn from one hearth while the other is recharged.

Apparatus for making alloy power

A multi-purpose optical sensor operates in the medium-to-far infrared wavelength spectral region to sense the surface temperature of plasma-jet spray coating materials. This plasma itself emits little or no radiation in this region and, accordingly, the output signal from the sensor is used to adjust the electrical input and other variables associated with the plasma spray torch to insure that particles arriving at the substrate surface to be coated are, in fact, in a molten state. The sensor employs infrared filters and, additionally, the sensor is used to monitor not only coating and temperature but also plasma beam divergence and particle seeding density to provide other control functions. In another embodiment, the sensor is used to measure the temperature and size of a molten metal pool in the presence of an electric arc, as in the case of the melting and pouring of metal to form ingots, and to control the electric arc and other melting parameters so as to control the size and temperature of the molten pool. It may also be used to locate the position of foreign matter on the surface of the molten pool and to manipulate the arc so as to move the foreign matter away from the pouring region, thereby restricting the amount of such foreign matter which enters the poured metal stream, thus producing cleaner ingots having improved freedom from inclusions.

Infrared sensor for the control of plasma-jet spray coating and electric

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Richard W Lober