General Electric Company

Thomas Phillip Schumacher

Gary Eugene Wheat

Terri Kay Brown

Steven Craig Mertz

David Wayne Meece

A water-testing apparatus tests an article such as a turbine airfoil component having at least two water flow passage article inlets. The apparatus includes an apparatus body having a water inlet, and an attachment head integral with the apparatus body. The attachment head includes a holder that receives the article therein in sealing contact with an article seal, and at least two ports, each port being in registry with at least one of the at least two water flow passage article inlets. A water flow controller within the apparatus body has a controller inlet in water-flow communication with the water inlet, at least two controller outlets, each controller outlet being in water-flow communication with one of the ports of the attachment head, and a flow-control valve disposed in a water flow path between the controller inlet and the controller outlets. The flow-control valve is controllable to controllably connect a single one of the controller outlets at a time to the controller inlet.

Water-flow testing apparatus

A method for accurately sizing and forming the cooling holes of an air-cooled gas turbine engine component on which a protective diffusion coating will be deposited. The method generally entails drilling a hole in a surface region of a substrate, and then measuring the thickness of any recast surface region surrounding the hole and created as a result of a portion of the surface region having melted and then resolidified. The thickness of the additive layer of the diffusion coating that will deposit on a corresponding recast surface region of the component is then predicted based on an inverse relationship determined to exist with the thickness of the recast surface region formed during drilling of the cooling hole. An appropriately-oversized hole can then be formed in the component so that, after depositing the diffusion coating on the component, the additive layer grows sufficiently within the hole to yield a cooling hole approximately having the required final diameter.

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Madisonville, KY, United States of America

Thomas Phillip Schumacher