Patents by Inventor Thomas Etter

Thomas Etter 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).

  • Publication number: 20180015566
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method for manufacturing a mechanical component, by applying additive manufacturing, wherein the method includes depositing a powder material and locally melting and resolidifying the powder material, thereby providing a solid body, the method including choosing a powder material of a specified chemical composition.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 12, 2017
    Publication date: January 18, 2018
    Applicant: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Andreas KUENZLER, Fabian Ernesto GEIGER
  • Publication number: 20170356068
    Abstract: A Ni-base superalloy composition to be used for powder-based additive manufacturing (AM) technology, such as selective laser melting (SLM) or electron beam melting (EBM). The cracking susceptibility during an AM process is considerably reduced by controlling the amount of elements, especially Hf, that form low-melting eutectics.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 13, 2017
    Publication date: December 14, 2017
    Inventors: Roman ENGELI, Thomas ETTER, Fabian GEIGER
  • Patent number: 9764423
    Abstract: The invention refers to a method for manufacturing a hybrid component including the following steps of manufacturing a preform as a first part of the hybrid component, then successively building up on that preform a second part of the component from a metallic powder material by means of an additive manufacturing process by scanning with an energy beam, thereby establishing a controlled grain orientation in primary and in secondary direction of at least a part of the second part of the component. The controlled secondary grain orientation is realized by applying a specific scanning pattern of the energy beam, which is aligned to the cross section profile of the component or to the local load conditions for the component.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: September 19, 2017
    Assignee: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Matthias Hoebel, Thomas Etter, Maxim Konter, Julius Schurb
  • Patent number: 9677149
    Abstract: A method for post-weld heat treatment of a without a filler material welded high strength component made of a gamma prime (??) strengthened superalloy can include providing the welded component, heating the welded component by applying a rapid heating-up rate in the range of 20° C./min to 40° C./min during the entire temperature range from room temperature (RT) up to a temperature T1 of at least 1000° C., holding the welded component at T1 and then heating the component by applying a slow heating-up rate of about 5° C./min to a final temperature Tf, then holding the welded component at Tf for a time tf sufficient for at least partially dissolving the gamma prime phase in a weld of the welded component and also in a base material surrounding the weld, and cooling the component with a cooling rate that is greater than or equal to about 20° C./min.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2017
    Assignee: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Thomas Etter, Daniel Beckel, Thomas Opderbecke, Guenter Ambrosy
  • Patent number: 9670572
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of post-built up heat treatment of an additively manufactured high strength component made of a gamma-prime strengthened superalloy based on Ni or Co or Fe or combinations thereof. An application of a rapid heating-up rate of 25 to 60° C./min in a specific temperature range during the first post-built heat treatment after additive manufacturing avoids or at least minimizes the gamma-prime precipitation in the component during heat-up. This results in crack-free components/articles compared to significant cracking present in conventionally heat treated components.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2017
    Assignee: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Thomas Etter, Roman Engeli, Andreas Kuenzler
  • Patent number: 9670571
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a component, especially of a gas turbine, made of a single crystal (SX) or directionally solidified (DS) nickelbase superalloy, including a heat treatment and a machining and/or mechanical treatment step. The ductility of the component is improved by doing the machining and/or mechanical treatment step prior to said heat treatment and a solution heat treatment of the component is done prior to the machining/mechanical treatment step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2014
    Date of Patent: June 6, 2017
    Assignee: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Thomas Etter, Roland Mücke
  • Publication number: 20170046412
    Abstract: The disclosure relates to a method for querying and updating entries in a database, the database comprising a main data structure for storing database entries and a delta data structure for storing new entries, the method comprising the following steps: receiving a plurality of database queries, aggregating a received plurality of database queries to obtain a batch of database queries, performing a shared scan of the main data structure with the batch of database queries, wherein the database entries in the main data structure are queried with respect to each database query in the batch of database queries, after the step of performing the shared scan, merging the main data structure with the delta data structure to update the main data structure with the received new entries.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2016
    Publication date: February 16, 2017
    Inventors: Eliezer Levy, Donald Kossman, Lucas Braun, Thomas Etter, Georgios Gasparis, Daniel Widmer, Aharon Avitzur, Martin Kaufmann, Antonios Iliopoulos
  • Publication number: 20170021415
    Abstract: The application relates to the technology of producing three-dimensional articles by means of powder-based additive manufacturing, such as selective laser melting or electron beam melting. Especially, it refers to a Nickel-base superalloy powder on basis of Hastelloy X consisting of the following chemical composition: 20.5-23.0 Cr, 17.0-20.0 Fe, 8.0-10.0 Mo, 0.50-2.50 Co, 0.20-1.00 W, 0.04-0.10 C, 0-0.5 Si, 0-0.5 Mn, 0-0.008 B, remainder Ni and unavoidable residual elements and wherein the powder has a powder size distribution between 10 and 100 ?m and a spherical morphology and the ratio of the content of alloying elements C/B is at least 5 or more.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 21, 2016
    Publication date: January 26, 2017
    Applicant: ANSALDO ENERGIA IP UK LIMITED
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Andreas KÜNZLER, Hossein MEIDANI
  • Publication number: 20170021453
    Abstract: The application relates to the technology of producing three-dimensional articles by powder-based additive manufacturing, such as selective laser melting or electron beam melting. Especially, it refers to a high oxidation resistant and high gamma-prime precipitation containing Ni-base super alloy powder on basis of IN738LC with a modified chemical composition. Such powder has the following chemical composition (in wt.-%): 15.7-16.3 Cr, 8.0-9.0 Co, 1.5-2.0 Mo, 2.4-2.8 W, 1.5-2.0 Ta, 3.2-3.7 Al, 2.2-3.7 Ti, 0.6-1.1 Nb, 0.09-0.13 C, 0.007-0.012 B, 0.0045?Zr<0.03, 0.001?Si<0.03, remainder Ni and unavoidable residual elements and in addition a powder size distribution between 10 and 100 ?m and a spherical morphology. As an advantage nearly crack free three-dimensional articles can be produced with more productive process parameters and without complicated and time consuming variations of the addive manufacturing processes (e.g. pre-heating) and/or post processing (e.g. hot isostatic pressing HIP).
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 9, 2014
    Publication date: January 26, 2017
    Applicant: GENERAL ELECTRIC TECHNOLOGY GMBH
    Inventors: Roman ENGELI, Thomas ETTER, Hossein MEIDANI
  • Publication number: 20170017676
    Abstract: An event processing system is configured to process a stream of events operating on a database system. The event processing system comprises an event load balancing unit, a plurality of event computing nodes, and a plurality of event state stores, wherein the event load balancing unit is configured to route the stream of events to the plurality of event computing nodes, wherein the plurality of event state stores are configured to store states of the plurality of event computing nodes for maintaining a state of the event processing, and wherein the plurality of event computing nodes are configured to process the events, to change their states, and to update the plurality of event state stores based on their changed states.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2016
    Publication date: January 19, 2017
    Inventors: Eliezer Levy, Aharon Avitzur, Lucas Braun, Thomas Etter, Georgios Gasparis, Martin Kaufmann, Donald Kossmann, Daniel Widmer
  • Publication number: 20160175986
    Abstract: A method for producing a metallic component comprises the steps of first preparing a component by means of an additive manufacturing process, and second exposing said manufactured component to a heat treatment. Improved properties of the resulting component are achieved by said heat treatment comprising a zone annealing step.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 9, 2015
    Publication date: June 23, 2016
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Roman ENGELI, Fabian GEIGER
  • Publication number: 20160151860
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a component, especially for gas turbines and other thermo machinery. The method includes providing a data set defining the component for being used in an additive manufacturing process; manufacturing said component by means of said additive manufacturing process according to said data set; and subjecting said manufactured component to a heat treatment (HT) in order to change the microstructure of the manufactured component.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 29, 2015
    Publication date: June 2, 2016
    Inventors: Roman ENGELI, Thomas ETTER, Hossein MEIDANI
  • Publication number: 20160090848
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for producing a three-dimensional article or at least a part of such an article made of a gamma prime (??) precipitation hardened nickel base superalloy with a high volume fraction (>25%) of gamma-prima phase which is a difficult to weld superalloy, or made of a cobalt base superalloy, or of a non-castable or difficult to machine metal material by means of selective laser melting (SLM), in which the article is produced by melting of layerwise deposited metal powder with a laser beam characterized in that the SLM processing parameters are selectively adjusted to locally tailor the microstructure and/or porosity of the produced article or a part of the article and therefore to optimize desired properties of the finalized article/part of the article.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 9, 2015
    Publication date: March 31, 2016
    Inventors: Roman ENGELI, Simone HOEVEL, Alexander STANKOWSKI, Thomas ETTER, Hartmut HAEHNLE
  • Publication number: 20150344994
    Abstract: The application relates to the technology of producing three-dimensional articles by means of powder-based additive manufacturing, such as selective laser melting (SLM) or electron beam melting (EBM). It refers to a Nickel-base superalloy powder, wherein the superalloy powder has a chemical composition that allows establishing a gamma-prime precipitation content of 60-70 vol.-% in the superalloy in a heat treated condition. The powder has a powder size distribution between 10 and 100 ?m and a spherical morphology. The ratios of the content (in weight-%) of the alloying elements C, B, Hf, Zr, Si are the following: C/B=10-32; C/Hf>2; C/Zr>8; C/Si>1. A preferred embodiment includes of the following chemical composition (in weight-%): 7.7-8.3 Cr; 5.0-5.25 Co; 2.0-2.1 Mo;7.8-8.3 W; 5.8-6.1 Ta; 4.7-5.1 Al; 1.1-1.4 Ti; 0.08-0.16 C; 0.005-0.008 B; 0-0.04 Hf;0-0.01 Zr; 0-0.08 Si; the remainder being Ni and unavoidable impurities.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 19, 2015
    Publication date: December 3, 2015
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Hossein Meidani, Maxim Konter
  • Publication number: 20150322557
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of post-built up heat treatment of an additively manufactured high strength component made of a gamma-prime strengthened superalloy based on Ni or Co or Fe or combinations thereof. An application of a rapid heating-up rate of 25 to 60° C./min in a specific temperature range during the first post-built heat treatment after additive manufacturing avoids or at least minimizes the gamma-prime precipitation in the component during heat-up. This results in crack-free components/articles compared to significant cracking present in conventionally heat treated components.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 6, 2015
    Publication date: November 12, 2015
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Roman ENGELI, Andreas KUENZLER
  • Publication number: 20150090074
    Abstract: The invention refers to a method for manufacturing a three-dimensional metallic article/component made of a Ni-, Co-, Fe-based superalloy or combinations thereof, entirely or partly, by a powder based additive manufacturing process. During the step of performing powder melting by scanning a dual laser setup is used, where two laser beams of different beam properties are combined in the same machine and by adjusted beam profiling and integration of a suitable beam switch in a controlled manner a switching between two different laser beam diameters is performed. In each layer the laser beam with the smaller diameter scans the whole area and in every kth layer, with k>1, the laser beam with the larger diameter scans the area where a coarse grain size is needed thereby remelting the area with fine grain sizes. With such a manufacturing method higher lifetime and operation performances of metallic parts and prototypes can be reached.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2014
    Publication date: April 2, 2015
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Matthias HOEBEL, Julius SCHURB, Felix ROERIG
  • Publication number: 20150013852
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a component, especially of a gas turbine, made of a single crystal (SX) or directionally solidified (DS) nickelbase superalloy, including a heat treatment and a machining and/or mechanical treatment step. The ductility of the component is improved by doing the machining and/or mechanical treatment step prior to said heat treatment and a solution heat treatment of the component is done prior to the machining/mechanical treatment step.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 23, 2014
    Publication date: January 15, 2015
    Inventors: Thomas ETTER, Roland MÜCKE
  • Publication number: 20140366995
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of post-weld heat treatment of a without a filler material electron beam or laser welded high strength component made of a gamma prime (??) strengthened superalloy based on Ni or Co or Fe or combinations thereof. The method consists of the following steps a) providing the welded component, then b) heating the welded component by applying a rapid heating-up rate in the range of about 20 to 40° C./min during the entire temperature range from RT up to a temperature T1 of at least 1000° C., then c) holding the welded component at T1 and then heating the component by applying a slow heating-up rate of about 5° C./min to a final temperature Tf, then d) holding the welded component at Tf for a time tf, wherein isothermal dwell time tf is sufficient for at least partially dissolving the gamma prime phase in the weld and also in the base material surrounding the weld; then e) cooling the component with a cooling rate of about 20° C.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 17, 2014
    Publication date: December 18, 2014
    Inventors: Thomas Etter, Daniel Beckel, Thomas Opderbecke, Guenter Ambrosy
  • Publication number: 20140295087
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for additively manufacturing an article made of a difficult-to-weld highly-precipitation-strengthened Ni-base super alloy that comprises Al and Ti in the sum of more than 5 wt.-% or a difficult-to weld carbide/solution-strengthened cobalt (Co)-base super alloy, whereby a metal particle mixture of at least a first phase and a second phase is provided as a starting material, said first phase of the mixture being a base material and said second phase of the mixture being a material which is a derivative of the first material and has relative to said material of said first phase an improved weldability, and whereby the metal particle mixture is processed by means of an additive manufacturing process which is one of selective laser melting (SLM), selective laser sintering (SLS), electron beam melting (EBM), laser metal forming (LMF), laser engineered net shape (LENS), or direct metal deposition (DMD).
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 13, 2014
    Publication date: October 2, 2014
    Inventors: Lukas Emanuel RICKENBACHER, Alexander STANKOWSKI, Simone HOEVEL, Thomas ETTER
  • Publication number: 20140287876
    Abstract: An exercise system adapted to provide a truly interactive level of exercise with timed exercise intervals that are shown to be optimal in various physiological studies.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 18, 2014
    Publication date: September 25, 2014
    Inventors: Dana V. Etter, Thomas A. Etter, Robert E. Etter, Roger G. Etter