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US 10,648,844 B2Granted
Gas flow characterization in additive manufacturing
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsScott Alan Gold, James Harding Shealy, Lucas Christian Jones
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of characterizing gas flow within a housing includes: positioning one or more gas flow sensors in the housing; introducing a gas flow into the housing; using the one or more gas flow sensors to generate two or more gas flow measurements at spaced-apart locations within the housing; and recording the two or more measurements to create a gas flow map.
Claims20
An additive manufacturing machine, comprising:
- a housing defining an environment;
- a sensor support removably positioned within the environment, the sensor support comprising:
- a frame;
- one or more actuators coupled with the frame;
- a mount operatively coupled with the one or more actuators, the one or more actuators being operable to drive the mount to a plurality of locations;
- a gas flow sensor carried by the mount;
- one or more processors communicatively coupled with the gas flow sensor, the one or more processors configured to:
- receive a first gas flow measurement generated by the gas flow sensor while positioned at a first location;
- receive a second gas flow measurement generated by the gas flow sensor while positioned at a second location spaced apart from the first location;
- and
- generate a gas flow map based at least in part on the first gas flow measurement and the second gas flow measurement.
8 more elements
An additive manufacturing machine, comprising:
- a housing defining an environment;
- a build platform having a first gas flow sensor and a second gas flow sensor spaced from the first gas flow sensor;
- one or more processors communicatively coupled with the first gas flow sensor and the second gas flow sensor, the one or more processors configured to:
- receive a first gas flow measurement generated by the first gas flow sensor;
- receive a second gas flow measurement generated by the second gas flow sensor;
- create a gas flow map based at least in part on the first gas flow measurement and the second gas flow measurement.
3 more elements
An apparatus for characterizing a gas flow within an environment of an additive manufacturing machine, the apparatus comprising:
- a frame;
- one or more actuators coupled with the frame;
- a mount operatively coupled with at least one of the one or more actuators and movable to a plurality of positions when driven by the one or more actuators;
- a gas flow sensor carried by the mount and operable to measure the gas flow at each of the plurality of positions within the environment;
- and one or more processors communicatively coupled with the gas flow sensor, the one or more processors configured to:
- receive gas flow measurements generated by the gas flow sensor at each of the plurality of positions;
- and create a gas flow map based at least in part on the gas flow measurements.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.