Method of fabricating space satellite tank components utilizing additive manufacturing and spin forming
AssigneeKeystone Engineering Company
InventorsIan Ballinger, Wayne H. Tuttle
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of forming a thick wall section on a specific region of a thin wall spinformed metallic tank shell includes forming a thin wall metallic tank shell blank by spinforming a metal sheet over a mandrel and removing the tank shell blank from the mandrel. The method further includes mounting the blank in an additive manufacturing system and adding metallic structural features to the tank shell according to a 3D model stored in memory in the additive manufacturing system.
Claims19
A method of forming metallic structural features in a specific region of a thin wall spinformed metallic tank shell, the method comprising:
- forming a thin wall metallic tank shell blank by spinforming a metal sheet over a mandrel;
- removing the tank shell blank from the mandrel;
- mounting the blank in an additive manufacturing system;
- and
- adding the metallic structural features to the tank shell according to a 3D model stored in memory in the additive manufacturing system.
A thin wall spinformed metallic tank shell comprising:
- a first region with a first thickness;
- at least one second region with a second thickness greater than the first thickness including structural features formed by an additive manufacturing process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.