General Electric Company

Thaddeus Jan Strusinski

Jon Conrad Schaeffer

Paul Stuart Wilson

Doyle Clyde Lewis

Aaron Todd Frost

Ariel Caesar-Prepena Jacala

Eugene Clemens

Brian Harlow Farrell

Frederick Whitfield Dantzler

Jeffrey Aaron Killough

James A Morin

Micahel Butler

A weld process cuitable for repairing precipitation-strengthened superalloys, and particularly gamma prime-strengthened nickel-based superalloys. The process entails forming a weldment in a cavity present in a surface of an article formed of a precipitation-strengthened superalloy. The cavity has a root region and a cap region between the root region and the surface of the article. A solid body formed of a superalloy composition is placed in the root region of the cavity so as to occupy a first portion but not a second portion of the root region. A first filler material formed of a solid solution-strengthened superalloy is then weld-deposited in the second portion of the root region. Subsequently, a second filler material formed of a precipitation-strengthened superalloy is weld-deposited in the cap region of the cavity.

Welding process

A gas turbine component can be refurbished and/or repaired with an arc welding process that is used in conjunction with a 6-axis robot, a camera and a robot controller/vision processor. Applied to a wire fed plasma welding process, the vision system identifies the part, constructs a weld path based on the part's individual contour, and calculates a trajectory (with or without sinusoidal oscillation) for the robot arm to follow.

Gas turbine component refurbishment apparatus and repair method

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Easley, SC, United States of America

Thaddeus Jan Strusinski