Patents by Inventor David Fulton Johnston

David Fulton Johnston has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8356588
    Abstract: A system, in one embodiment, includes a combustion-based system having a combustion chamber. The system also includes an ignition control system. The ignition control system includes an ignition device coupled to the combustion chamber, control circuitry having an energy storage device configured to supply energy to the ignition device to produce an ignition event having a desired energy level, and a controller configured to obtain a target voltage across the energy storage device and to discharge an ignition energy from the energy storage device after obtaining the target voltage, wherein the ignition control system is configured to supply the ignition energy to the ignition device to produce the ignition event.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2013
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: David Fulton Johnston, Michael McCall Mahler, David Michael Chapin
  • Patent number: 8000102
    Abstract: A unitary-enclosure housing apparatus and arrangement for protecting and cooling the high voltage electronic conditioning and filtering circuitry components used for providing a high-voltage waveform to an electrostatic precipitator device includes a hermetically sealed dielectric liquid coolant filled tank/housing having one or more side-mounted hollow-panel type radiator structures for dissipating heat from the coolant. The disclosed unitary-enclosure housing apparatus and the particular arrangement of the internal electronic components results in a relatively external small footprint while containing both the transformer-rectifier (TR) set and high-voltage resistor-capacitor (R-C) filter components associated with a high-voltage electrostatic precipitator device in a single unitary package. The housing apparatus is outfitted with a removable top cover plate and access panel for providing easy access to the TR set and R-C filter components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2011
    Assignee: Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group, Inc.
    Inventors: David Fulton Johnston, Terry Lewis Farmer, Easel Roberts, Dan Steinhaur
  • Publication number: 20110186022
    Abstract: A system, in one embodiment, includes a combustion-based system having a combustion chamber. The system also includes an ignition control system. The ignition control system includes an ignition device coupled to the combustion chamber, control circuitry having an energy storage device configured to supply energy to the ignition device to produce an ignition event having a desired energy level, and a controller configured to obtain a target voltage across the energy storage device and to discharge an ignition energy from the energy storage device after obtaining the target voltage, wherein the ignition control system is configured to supply the ignition energy to the ignition device to produce the ignition event.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 29, 2010
    Publication date: August 4, 2011
    Applicant: General Electric Company
    Inventors: David Fulton Johnston, Michael McCall Mahler, David Michael Chapin
  • Publication number: 20110043999
    Abstract: A unitary-enclosure housing apparatus and arrangement for protecting and cooling the high voltage electronic conditioning and filtering circuitry components used for providing a high-voltage waveform to an electrostatic precipitator device includes a hermetically sealed dielectric liquid coolant filled tank/housing having one or more side-mounted hollow-panel type radiator structures for dissipating heat from the coolant. The disclosed unitary-enclosure housing apparatus and the particular arrangement of the internal electronic components results in a relatively external small footprint while containing both the transformer-rectifier (TR) set and high-voltage resistor-capacitor (R-C) filter components associated with a high-voltage electrostatic precipitator device in a single unitary package. The housing apparatus is outfitted with a removable top cover plate and access panel for providing easy access to the TR set and R-C filter components.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 20, 2009
    Publication date: February 24, 2011
    Inventors: David Fulton JOHNSTON, Terry Lewis Farmer, Easel Roberts, Dan Steinhaur
  • Patent number: 7837749
    Abstract: A system (10) for monitoring an operating condition of an electrostatic precipitator rapper system (12) includes a rapper (24) configured to mechanically actuate to disengage pollutants from a plate of the electrostatic precipitator (12). The system also includes a sensor (38, 40) configured to obtain and transmit signals representative of vibration, motion, or current behavior of the rapper; and a processor (52) configured to receive the signals from the sensor and to detect whether the rapper is mechanically actuated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2010
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Charles Erklin Seeley, Eladio Clemente Delgado, John Erik Hershey, Harold Woodruff Tomlinson, Jr., David Fulton Johnston, Terry Lewis Farmer
  • Publication number: 20090139406
    Abstract: A method for designing a discharge electrode of an electrostatic precipitator, includes: selecting a base design for the discharge electrode and the electrostatic precipitator; loading the base design into a computational tool for modeling collection efficiency, ?, of the electrostatic precipitator as a function of at least one of a charging volume, Vc, a charging electric field, Ec, and an electric field for charged particle, Eacc; modeling the collection efficiency, ?; and adjusting at least one aspect of the base design to improve the collection efficiency, ?, according to the modeling.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 19, 2008
    Publication date: June 4, 2009
    Applicant: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Robert Warren Taylor, Abdelkrim Younsi, Yingneng Zhou, David Fulton Johnston, Terry Lewis Farmer, J. Easel Roberts
  • Patent number: 7452403
    Abstract: A system for detecting partial discharge activity in an electrostatic precipitator is provided. The system includes one or more sensors configured to receive and transmit signals representative of voltage or current behavior of the electrostatic precipitator. The system also includes a processor configured to receive the signals from the one or more sensors and configured for detecting one or more occurrences of partial discharge activity in the electrostatic precipitator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2008
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Abdelkrim Younsi, Yingneng Zhou, David Fulton Johnston, Terry Lewis Farmer, Robert Warren Taylor