Abstract: Process for welding two blade parts (9, 10) by a means such as a linear friction welding machine, in which a collar or flange (15) of material to be sacrificed is placed between the contact surfaces (16) or around the latter in order to increase the heat produced by the friction at the leading and trailing edges of the blade. As a result of this arrangement it is possible to start with two blade parts (9, 10) having the dimensions of the finished product, possibly with the exception of the area around the contact surfaces, so that the final machining is very significantly reduced.

Abstract: A method of producing a fibre-reinforced metallic circular part having a tral hollow, wherein the reinforcing fibres are disposed in the part in the vicinity of the hollow, comprises providing an annular metallic blank with a channel-sectioned groove opening towards the axis of the blank, placing uncompressed concentric layers of the reinforcing fibres and additional metal alternately in the groove followed by a more rigid expansion ring, evacuating the groove and sealing it by a deformable closure member which covers the groove, placing this assembly in an autoclave and subjecting it to a temperature and pressure sufficient to effect superplastic forging of the layers of additional metal whereby the fibre layers and the additional metal layers are compressed and welded to the blank in a single operation, and machining the resulting assembly to obtain the required shaped part.

Abstract: A hollow blade for a turboshaft engine, such as a fan rotor blade of large chord, is manufactured by a method in which primary components including two outer metal sheets and at least one intermediate sheet are hot formed so that the components are curved and twisted to a desired shape, diffusion barriers are formed at selected positions on the intermediate sheet, the shaped components are assembled and located on suitable process tooling, the assembled components are diffusion welded together, the welded assembly is internally pressurized by gas to inflate and superplastically deform selected areas to form a hollow in said assembly, and performing finishing operations on the hollow assembly to obtain the hollow blade.