Conditioning one or more additive manufactured objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016325358-A1
Application number	US-201515111378-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 22, 2015
Priority date	Jan 24, 2014
Publication date	Nov 10, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A manufacturing process is provided. During this process, material is solidified together within a chamber to form an object using an additive manufacturing device. At least a portion of the solidified material is conditioned within the chamber using a material conditioning device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A manufacturing process, comprising:
solidifying material together within a chamber to form an object using an additive manufacturing device; and conditioning at least a portion of the solidified material within the chamber using a material conditioning device.

2 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises changing a chemical composition of the at least a portion of the solidified material.

3 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises changing a microstructure of the at least a portion of the solidified material.

4 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises nitriding at least a portion the solidified material at a surface of the object.

5 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises boriding at least a portion the solidified material at a surface of the object.

6 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises chromizing at least a portion the solidified material at a surface of the object.

7 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the conditioning comprises aluminizing at least a portion the solidified material at a surface of the object.

8 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the solidifying comprises fusing the material together using an energy beam generated by the additive manufacturing device.

9 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the object comprises a complete additive manufactured part.

10 . The process of claim 1 , further comprising:
solidifying additional material together and with the object within the chamber using the additive manufacturing device to form a second object; and conditioning at least a portion of the additional solidified material within the chamber using the material conditioning device.

11 . The process of claim 10 , further comprising preparing at least a portion of the second object for the solidification with the additional material.

12 . The process of claim 1 , further comprising removing a quantity of un-solidified material from the chamber between the solidification of the material and the conditioning of the solidified material.

13 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the material comprises metal powder.

14 . The process of claim 1 , wherein the material comprises ceramic powder.

15 . A process for conditioning an object, the process comprising:
changing a chemical composition of at least a portion of the object; wherein the changing of the chemical composition is performed within a sealed chamber in which the object was additively formed.

16 . The process of claim 15 , wherein the changing of the chemical composition comprises one or more of nitriding, boriding, chromizing and aluminizing at least a portion of the object at a surface of the object.

17 . A manufacturing system, comprising:
a housing with an internal chamber; an additive manufacturing device adapted to solidify material together within the chamber to form an object; and a material conditioning device adapted to condition at least a portion of the solidified material within the chamber.

18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the material conditioning device is adapted to provide gas in the chamber for chemically reacting with the at least a portion of the solidified material.

19 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the material conditioning device is adapted to one or more of nitride, boride, chromize and aluminize at least a portion of the solidified material at a surface of the object.

20 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the additive manufacturing device is adapted to generate an energy beam for solidifying the material together.

Assignees

• United Technologies Corp

Inventors

• Nardi Aaron T
• Dardas Zissis

Classifications

• B22F3/24 Primary

  After-treatment of workpieces or articles {(B22F3/1146 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• B22F12/70

  Gas flow means · CPC title

• B22F10/62

  by chemical means · CPC title

• B22F7/06 Primary

  of composite workpieces or articles from parts, e.g. to form tipped tools {(B22F7/002 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• B22F10/28

  Powder bed fusion, e.g. selective laser melting [SLM] or electron beam melting [EBM] · CPC title