Patents by Inventor Gary Eugene Wheat

Gary Eugene Wheat 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: 7918024
    Abstract: A method for manufacturing a turbine nozzle assembly using a fixture includes providing a first position of the fixture, positioning at least one datum of the turbine nozzle assembly adjacent at least one datum location point on the fixture when the fixture is in the first position, coupling the turbine nozzle assembly to the fixture when the fixture is in the first position, rotating the fixture from the first position into a second position that facilitates manufacturing the turbine nozzle assembly, and performing a manufacturing process on the turbine nozzle assembly when the fixture is in the second position.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 20, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2011
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Frank Delano Mooney, Jr., Gary Eugene Wheat, Timothy Riggs, Kenneth Ray Hill, Jr., Ronald Dale Edwards
  • Patent number: 7056555
    Abstract: An article having an internal passage therein and an internal article surface is coated by providing a coating slurry that is a mixture of a deposition source including a source of aluminum, a halide activator, and a flowable carrier comprising a flowable compound selected from the group consisting of a flowable organic compound and a flowable inorganic compound. There is no oxide dispersant in the coating slurry. The coating slurry is introduced into the internal passage and dried to remove at least a portion of the carrier therefrom and leave a dried coating material. The article surface in gaseous communication with the dried coating material is heated to form an aluminum-containing coating bonded to the article surface. Any residual dried coating material is removed by blowing compressed air through the internal passage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 13, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2006
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Steven Earl Bauer, Gary Eugene Wheat, Matthew David Saylor, Jeffrey Allan Pfaendtner, Atul Natwerlal Shah
  • Patent number: 6863925
    Abstract: An article is coasted by preparing a coating source having an aluminum halide, a fluoride or an iodide of a modifying element as a source of the modifying element, and a carrier gas. The modifying element is zirconium, hafnium, and yttrium, or combinations thereof. The coating source is contacted to the article, and the coating source and the article are heated to a coating temperature of at least about 1850° F. for a period of time sufficient to permit aluminum and the modifying element to coat onto the surface of the article. The preferred fluorides of modifying elements are zirconium tetrafluoride and hafnium tetrafluoride.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2005
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Gary Eugene Wheat, Terri Kay Brown, Roger Dale Wustman, Joseph David Rigney
  • Publication number: 20040115355
    Abstract: An article having an internal passage therein and an internal article surface is coated by providing a coating slurry that is a mixture of a deposition source including a source of aluminum, a halide activator, and a flowable carrier comprising a flowable compound selected from the group consisting of a flowable organic compound and a flowable inorganic compound. There is no oxide dispersant in the coating slurry. The coating slurry is introduced into the internal passage and dried to remove at least a portion of the carrier therefrom and leave a dried coating material. The article surface in gaseous communication with the dried coating material is heated to form an aluminum-containing coating bonded to the article surface. Any residual dried coating material is removed by blowing compressed air through the internal passage.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 13, 2002
    Publication date: June 17, 2004
    Inventors: Steven Earl Bauer, Gary Eugene Wheat, Matthew David Saylor, Jeffrey Allan Pfaendtner, Atul Natwerlal Shah
  • Patent number: 6434876
    Abstract: A turbine blade is coated by first applying a particle-entrapped tip coating to the tip of the airfoil. An aluminum-containing coating is thereafter applied to the airfoil, including to the tip of the airfoil overlying the particle-entrapped tip coating. The aluminum-containing coating is applied by providing a source of aluminum contacting the airfoil that deposits aluminum onto the airfoil at a coating temperature, and heating the airfoil to the coating temperature so that the aluminum-containing coating is deposited onto the airfoil, and so that the aluminum-containing coating and the particle-entrapped tip coating are diffused into the turbine blade substrate. The step of applying the aluminum-containing coating occurs without substantial prior interdiffusing of the particle-entrapped tip coating with the tip of the airfoil as a separate step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2000
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2002
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Gary Eugene Wheat, Terri Kay Brown, Roger Dale Wustman
  • Patent number: 6367687
    Abstract: A method is provided for treating cooperating, juxtaposed substantially uncoated alloy substrate surfaces in preparation for brazing, for example an inner wall of the radially outer open end of a turbine engine blading member with the rim of an end plate or tip cap. The method includes treating at least one of the cooperating surfaces with a reducing gas comprising halogen gas for a time and at a temperature, for example 1-6 hours at 1650-1950° F., sufficient to remove any surface debris, for example oxides, and to deplete the alloy substrate surface of the total of elements selected from Al and Ti to a level of less than about 1 weight %. Depletion is to a depth in the surface which avoids intergranular attack of the substrate alloy surface. For example, the depth is no greater than about 0.0015″. Then the cooperating surfaces are brazed together.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2001
    Date of Patent: April 9, 2002
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Jim Dean Reeves, Gary Eugene Wheat, Nicholas Charles Palmer, Robert Eugene McCracken
  • Patent number: 6339879
    Abstract: A method for accurately sizing and forming the cooling holes of an air-cooled gas turbine engine component on which a protective diffusion coating will be deposited. The method generally entails drilling a hole in a surface region of a substrate, and then measuring the thickness of any recast surface region surrounding the hole and created as a result of a portion of the surface region having melted and then resolidified. The thickness of the additive layer of the diffusion coating that will deposit on a corresponding recast surface region of the component is then predicted based on an inverse relationship determined to exist with the thickness of the recast surface region formed during drilling of the cooling hole. An appropriately-oversized hole can then be formed in the component so that, after depositing the diffusion coating on the component, the additive layer grows sufficiently within the hole to yield a cooling hole approximately having the required final diameter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2000
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2002
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Gary Eugene Wheat, Terri Kay Brown, Thomas Phillip Schumacher