Method of forming cooling holes
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsKathleen Lombard Hendricks, Richard Bryan Guiney, Lenin Ramasamy Ramachandran, Brian James Crockett, Anthony S. Urbanski, Brenda Catherine Tenley
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method regarding forming a cooling hole in a component for a turbine engine, with the component held in a hole-forming machine with a laser carried on a multi-axis carriage and defining an optical path, the method comprising forming a set of cooling holes in the component with a laser mounted to the multi-axis carriage, estimating a total airflow through the set of cooling holes based on a set of data regarding the flow effectiveness of the set of cooling holes, and forming a second set of cooling holes with the laser.
Claims20
A method of closed loop forming a cooling hole in a component for a turbine engine, with the component held in place by a hole-forming machine, the method comprising:
- forming a first set of cooling holes in the component;
- using a sensor controlled by the hole-forming machine, capturing an image of each cooling hole within the first set of cooling holes to create a set of image data;
- obtaining a set of cross-sectional area data, comprising processing the set of image data to determine a cross-sectional area for the cooling holes in the first set of cooling holes with an image processing program residing in a processor of the hole-forming machine;
- estimating a total airflow through the first set of cooling holes based on the set of cross-sectional area data;
- adjusting at least one operational parameter based on the estimated total airflow;
- and
- after the adjusting, forming a second set of cooling holes.
A method of determining an airflow through a set of cooling holes, the method comprising:
- capturing an image of each cooling hole within the set of cooling holes to create a set of image data;
- obtaining a set of cross-sectional area data, including processing the set of image data to determine a cross-sectional area for the cooling holes in the set of cooling holes with an image processing program;
- and
- estimating a total airflow through the set of cooling holes based on the set of cross-sectional area data.
A hole-forming machine comprising:
- a jig configured to hold a component in which a pattern of cooling holes is to be formed;
- a multi-axis carriage moveable about multiple axes relative to the jig;
- a hole-forming tool carried by the multi-axis carriage and defining an optical path;
- a sensor carried by the multi-axis carriage and outputting at least one image for the cooling holes;
- and
- a controller operably controlling the multi-axis carriage, hole-forming tool, and sensor to form the cooling holes based a predetermined cooling hole pattern for the component, the controller comprising a processor having access to the cooling hole pattern, an image processing program to determine a cross-sectional area of the cooling holes in the cooling hole, and an airflow estimating program to estimate a total airflow through a sub-set of the cooling holes in the cooling hole pattern based on the determined cross-sectional area.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.