Repair and fabrication of combustion turbine components by spark plasma sintering
AssigneeSiemens Westinghouse Power Corporation
InventorsBrij B. Seth, Greg P. Wagner, Gary W. Swartzbeck
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of consolidating or repairing turbine component parts, such as turbine blades (10), requires providing a turbine component part (60, 61, 62, 63), establishing a contact pressure between the opposing surfaces (40, 42), where, optionally, fine particles may be present between such surfaces (40, 42), and then generating an electrical field to provide heat, and applying pressure on the opposing surfaces, resulting in high temperature spark plasma sintering to provide a consolidated turbine blade (50).
Claims17
A method of repairing a combustion turbine component comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a worn or damaged turbine component part having at least two approximate opposing surfaces, and a base coat and a thermal barrier coating on the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (b) removing the base coat and the thermal barrier coating from the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (c) disposing electrodes in close proximity to the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (d) generating an electric field to provide heat, and applying additional pressure on the opposing surfaces, resulting in cleaning and short-time high temperature spark plasma sintering between the opposing surfaces within 5 minutes at a temperature up to 1300° C.;
- (e) reducing the electric field;
- (f) subjecting the two approximate opposing surfaces to additional pressure;
- and
- (g) maintaining the pressure while cooling the turbine component approximate opposing surfaces.
A method of repairing a combustion turbine component comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing a worn or damaged turbine component part having at least two approximate opposing surfaces, and a base coat and a thermal barrier coating on the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (b) removing the base coat and a thermal barrier coating from the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (c) inserting discrete powder, having similar composition to at least one of the opposing surfaces, so that there is substantial contact pressure between the discrete particles and between the particles and the two approximate opposing surfaces of the turbine component;
- (d) disposing electrodes in close proximity to the approximate opposing surfaces;
- (e) generating an electric field to cause heat, and applying additional pressure between the particles, resulting in cleaning and short-time high temperature spark plasma sintering at the surface of the particles and at the approximate opposing surfaces within 5 minutes at a temperature up to 1300° C., with deformation of the inserted particles and high speed diffusion, and plastic flow of the particle material;
- (f) reducing the electric field between the approximate opposing surfaces;
- and
- (g) cooling the turbine component approximate opposing surfaces and the particulate material between the surfaces.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.