Wyman-gordon Company

General Electric Company

The University of Texas System

Sulekh C Jain

Bruce P Bardes

Michael E Sauby

Charles A Morris

Swami Ganesh

Richard G Menzies

Daniel D Krueger

William F Weldon

Seetharamaiah Mannava

Keh-Minn Chang

Jeffrey Francis Wessels

Ernest B Cooper, Jr

Thomas Watkins Lloyd

Jogender Singh

Hugo E Delgado

Timothy E Howson

John Michael Hyzak

Wilford H Couts, Jr

Daniel D Kruger

Leroy A Bates

Denis Lacroix

Serge B Couture

Paul W Forkey

Steven H Reichman

An apparatus and method is provided for controlling the temperature of dies and workpiece throughout a deformation process. Dies are capable of receiving external current to resistively heat the workpiece and dies during the deformation operation, the external current being modulated by feedback temperature readings taken from the workpiece. External current may be provided from a homopolar generator capable of producing pulsed dc current at controllable intervals and magnitudes simultaneously through the dies and workpiece.

Apparatus and method for deforming a workpiece

A hot forged article of a preselected profile is produced by heating a forging blank to elevated temperature and forging the blank at the elevated temperature between closed dies, to produce a forging of about the preselected profile of the final forging, but having flashing thereon. The flashing is removed by cooling the forging having flashing thereon to ambient temperature, and trimming the flashing from the forging by passing a trimming laser beam of sufficient power density to cut through the flashing along the preselected final profile of the forging. The forging may be post treated by passing a post treating excimer laser along the portion of the forging immediately adjacent the preselected profile, after the trimming laser has passed. The post treatment removes the heat affected zone, depending upon the energy level of the excimer laser.

Laser trimming of forgings

A dual alloy disk made from a rim alloy having high stress rupture and creep resistance as well as good hold time fatigue crack resistance and a hub alloy having high tensile strength and good low cycle fatigue crack resistance is described. The dual alloy disk is designed for use as a disk in gas turbine engines operating as high as 1500.degree. F. The hub and rim are joined together at a substantially defect-free joint to form a turbine disk having improved properties in both the hub and rim regions.

Dual alloy turbine disk

Two pieces of metal are bonded together at a surface by placing the two pieces into contact at the surface and forging the two pieces in a die which causes substantial displacement of the metal originally at the surface in a direction parallel to and outwardly from the edges of the surface. In this way, many of the defects which are potentially present at the original surface are displaced with moving metal away from the original contact between the two pieces of metal into sacrificial ribs and the remaining defects are exposed to significant strain. A portion of the displaced metal which contains many of the defects and which forms the sacrificial ribs is removed from the resulting bonded work piece as the sacrificial ribs are removed from the work piece. The result is a bond with superior properties and with a bond surface which can be located very precisely. This system is particularly appropriate for forming dual-alloy high-pressure turbine disks for gas turbines in which an annular peripheral ring of a second super-alloy is bonded to a central core of a first super-alloy. The system is particularly effective if, prior to forging, surfaces to be bonded are closely shape-conforming, are very clean, and are diffusion-bonded using hot isostatic pressing while the surfaces are gas-free. The sacrificial ribs are formed by vents in the impression of the forging dies. The vents are adjacent to the outer edges of the bond surface. The system may be accomplished by using one or more strikes of the same dies, or may include multiple strikes in which only one side of the bond is vented during each strike.

Dual-alloy disk system

An article of manufacture having at least a first and a second part, each part having different mechanical properties, compositions, microstructures or combinations thereof, being joined together using a forging process to yield a substantially defect-free joint region. The article in the form of a turbine disk is particularly suited for use in a gas turbine engine in which the hub or inner portion must be resistant to low cycle fatigue and have high strength, while the rim or outer portion must be resistant to stress rupture failure and creep failure.

Method of manufacturing dual alloy turbine disks

Valve system having a primary valve for excluding air, mounted in series with a secondary valve for controlling the flow of powder.

Valve system

A lubricant composition comprising water, graphite, an organic thickener, sodium molybdate, and sodium pentaborate. Other additives are sodium bicarbonate, ethylene glycol, or mica. The composition is effective in the hot forging of metals, is virtually non-flammable, and generates very little atmospheric pollution during use.

Water-based forging lubricant

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Sulekh C Jain