Burners and additive manufacturing methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12372232-B2
Application number	US-202418402823-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 3, 2024
Priority date	Dec 26, 2018
Publication date	Jul 29, 2025
Grant date	Jul 29, 2025

Abstract

Burners and methods of making burner bodies via a focused beam are disclosed. In an aspect, a burner includes (a) a burner body and (b) at least one connector configured to supply at least a fuel and an oxidizer to the burner body. The burner body includes (1) a plurality of passageways; (2) a first major surface; (3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and either: (4a) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways; or (4b) a cooling chamber directly adjacent to three or more of the plurality of passageways. The burner body includes a number of layers of metal directly bonded to each other. Further, methods are provided, including receiving, by a manufacturing device having one or more processors, a digital object comprising data specifying a burner body; and generating, with the manufacturing device by an additive manufacturing process, the burner body based on the digital object. A system is also provided, including a display that displays a 3D model of a burner body; and one or more processors that, in response to the 3D model selected by a user, cause a 3D printer to create a physical object of the burner body.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A burner comprising:
a) burner body comprising:
1) a plurality of passageways;
2) a first major surface;
3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and
4) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways, wherein the at least one heating element comprises a heating fluid, wherein the at least one heating element further comprises a structure that increases heat transfer, wherein the structure that increases heat transfer comprises individual posts;

wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of layers of metal directly bonded to each other; and
b) at least one connector configured to supply at least a fuel and an oxidizer to the burner body.

2. The burner of claim 1 , wherein the heating fluid comprises oil.

3. The burner of claim 1 , wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of columns of grains of metal.

4. The burner of claim 1 , wherein the first major surface has 8 or more rows of ports.

5. The burner of claim 1 , wherein a pattern of the plurality of ports at the first major surface is asymmetrical.

6. The burner of claim 1 , wherein the metal comprises steel or a nickel alloy.

7. A method of making a burner body of claim 1 , the method comprising sequential steps:
a) a subprocess comprising sequentially:
i) depositing a layer of loose powder particles in a region, wherein the loose powder particles comprise metallic particles and wherein the layer of loose powder particles has substantially uniform thickness;
ii) selectively treating an area of the layer of loose powder particles with irradiation by a focused beam to bond metallic particles together;

b) independently carrying out step a) a plurality of times to generate a burner body comprising the bonded powder particles and remaining loose powder particles, wherein in each step a), the loose powder particles are independently selected; and
c) separating substantially all of the remaining loose powder particles from the burner body.

8. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having data representing a three-dimensional model of a burner body, when accessed by one or more processors interfacing with a 3D printer, cause the 3D printer to create the burner body comprising:
1) a plurality of passageways;
2) a first major surface;
3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and
4) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways, wherein the at least one heating element comprises a heating fluid, wherein the at least one heating element further comprises a structure that increases heat transfer, wherein the structure that increases heat transfer comprises individual posts;
wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of layers of metal directly bonded to each other.

9. A method, comprising:
retrieving, from a non-transitory machine-readable medium, data representing a 3D model of a burner body, the burner body comprising:
1) a plurality of passageways;
2) a first major surface;
3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and
4) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways, wherein the at least one heating element comprises a heating fluid, wherein the at least one heating element further comprises a structure that increases heat transfer, wherein the structure that increases heat transfer comprises individual posts;

wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of layers of metal directly bonded to each other;
executing, by one or more processors, a 3D printing application interfacing with a manufacturing device using the data; and
generating, by the manufacturing device, a physical object of the burner body.

10. A burner body generated using the method of claim 9 .

11. A method of forming a burner body, the method comprising:
receiving, by a manufacturing device having one or more processors, a digital object comprising data specifying a plurality of layers of a burner body, the burner body comprising:
1) a plurality of passageways;
2) a first major surface;
3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and
4) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways, wherein the at least one heating element comprises a heating fluid, wherein the at least one heating element further comprises a structure that increases heat transfer, wherein the structure that increases heat transfer comprises individual posts;

wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of layers of metal directly bonded to each other; and
generating, with the manufacturing device by an additive manufacturing process, the burner body based on the digital object.

12. A system comprising:
a display that displays a 3D model of a burner body; and
one or more processors that, in response to the 3D model selected by a user, cause a 3D printer to create a physical object of the burner body, the burner body comprising:
1) a plurality of passageways;
2) a first major surface;
3) a plurality of ports at the first major surface, each port defined by an end of one of the passageways; and
4) at least one heating element in or adjacent to at least one of the plurality of passageways that increases the temperature of a wall of the at least one of the plurality of passageways, wherein the at least one heating element comprises a heating fluid, wherein the at least one heating element further comprises a structure that increases heat transfer, wherein the structure that increases heat transfer comprises individual posts;

wherein the burner body comprises a plurality of layers of metal directly bonded to each other.

Assignees

• 3M Innovative Properties Company

Inventors

• Upadhye Aniruddha A
• Strobel Mark A
• Plotnikov Elizaveta Y
• Heinzen Luke E

Classifications

• F23D2213/00

  Burner manufacture specifications · CPC title

• F23D14/56

  for spreading the flame over an area, e.g. for desurfacing of solid material, for surface hardening or for heating workpieces · CPC title

• B22F10/25

  Direct deposition of metal particles, e.g. direct metal deposition [DMD] or laser engineered net shaping [LENS] · CPC title

• B22F10/85

  for controlling or regulating additive manufacturing processes · CPC title

• Y02P10/25

  Process efficiency · CPC title