With Work Handling Patents (Class 148/594)
  • Patent number: 8900384
    Abstract: In a method for heat treating a metal tube or pipe for a nuclear power plant, the tube or pipe being accommodated in a batch-type vacuum heat treatment furnace, when the tube or pipe is laid down on and is subjected to heat treatment on a plurality of metal cross beams arranged along a longitudinal direction of the tube or pipe, it is possible to suppress scratches to be formed on the outer surface of the tube or pipe and attributable to heat treatment, and to reduce the discoloration on the outer surface of the tube or pipe by holding the tube or pipe and the metal cross beams in indirect contact with each other by virtue of a heat resistant fabric having a thickness of 0.1 to 1.2 mm interposed in between.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation
    Inventors: Shoji Kinomura, Shinichi Takenaka
  • Patent number: 8858740
    Abstract: In a method for heat treating a metal tube or pipe for a nuclear power plant, the tube or pipe being accommodated in a batch-type vacuum heat treatment furnace, when the tube or pipe is laid down on and is subjected to heat treatment on a plurality of metal cross beams arranged along a longitudinal direction of the tube or pipe, it is possible to suppress scratches to be formed on the outer surface of the tube or pipe and attributable to heat treatment, and to reduce the discoloration on the outer surface of the tube or pipe by holding the tube or pipe and the metal cross beams in indirect contact with each other by virtue of a heat resistant fabric having a thickness of 0.1 to 1.2 mm interposed in between.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 23, 2012
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Assignee: Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation
    Inventors: Shoji Kinomura, Shinichi Takenaka
  • Patent number: 7780800
    Abstract: A bent pipe corresponding to at least API X100 grade and having a base metal with high strength and toughness and a weld metal with high toughness is provided. A steel plate prepared by cooling after hot rolling at a cooling rate at the central portion in the plate thickness direction of at most 5° C. per second at 700-500° C. is formed into a bend mother pipe, which is then heated to 900-1100° C. and subjected to bending, then it is cooled to a temperature of at most 300° C. at a cooling rate in the central portion of the thickness direction of at least 5° C. per second at 700-500° C., after which it is tempered at 300-500° C.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2010
    Assignee: Sumitomo Metal Industries, Ltd.
    Inventors: Nobuaki Takahashi, Akio Yamamoto, Masahiko Hamada
  • Patent number: 7475478
    Abstract: A method for making structural automotive components and the like includes providing a blank of air hardenable martensitic stainless steel in the annealed condition. The steel blank has a thickness in the range of 0.5-5.0 mm., and is formed utilizing stamping, forging, pressing, or roller forming techniques or the like into the form of an automotive structural member. The automotive structural member is then hardened by application of heat, preferably to between 950° C. and 1100° C. for standard martensitic stainless steels. Thereafter, the automotive structural member is preferably cooled at a rate greater than 25° C. per minute to achieve a Rockwell C hardness of at least 39. The automotive structural member may undergo additional heat treating processes including high temperature or low temperature tempering processes which may incorporate electro-coating.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 13, 2009
    Assignee: KVA, Inc.
    Inventors: Edward J. McCrink, Danny Codd
  • Patent number: 7320178
    Abstract: A standoff for a cold plate and a cold plate using the standoff are characterized by a coil pack consisting of a plurality of individual fluid conveying tubes formed into a coil pack having a desired configuration and held in place by a plurality of retaining wires. The standoffs are slidably attached to the retaining wires and each comprises an elongate body that is triangular in cross-section, has a bottom end, an apex end opposite from the bottom end and a longitudinal bore toward the bottom end and through which a retaining wire extends. The standoffs are made of aluminum and are of sufficient size to maintain their structural integrity during a casting process in which the coil pack is placed in a mold and molten aluminum is poured around the coil pack.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 4, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2008
    Assignee: IMI Cornelius Inc.
    Inventors: Matthew J. Kirby, Jose L. Rodriguez, Miguel Angel Herrera Bucio
  • Patent number: 7115176
    Abstract: In a method of manufacturing articles (8) in hardenable metal materials, a shaped workpiece (5.1, 5.2) with closed cross-section is hardened. The hardened workpiece (5.1, 5.2) is separated into at least two parts, where each part constitutes one shaped open cross-section. The invention also concerns a manufacturing process and a production line for the manufacture of articles (8) in hardenable metal materials.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2001
    Date of Patent: October 3, 2006
    Assignee: Accra Teknik AB
    Inventors: Anders Sundgren, Göran Berglund, Mats Lindberg
  • Patent number: 6454884
    Abstract: A vehicle structural beam, such as a door intrusion beam, which possesses an elongate tubular beam part which at opposite ends is provided with mounting flanges for securement to a vehicle frame. The elongate tubular beam part and the flanges provided at opposite ends are defined by an integral, one-piece, monolithic steel structure which has been initially roll-formed from an elongate flat metal sheet to define the closed tubular structure of the tubular beam part, and which has been subjected to heating and quenching so that the elongate tubular beam part is of relatively high strength steel throughout its entire length, whereas the integrally and monolithically joined end flanges remain as lower strength steel which has been significantly unaffected by the heat treatment and quenching so as to permit appropriate shaping thereof and ease of welding to the vehicle frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2001
    Date of Patent: September 24, 2002
    Assignee: Pullman Industries, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank G. McNulty, Gerald Hackstock, Jeffrey L. Bladow
  • Patent number: 6402862
    Abstract: A method of hardening a work piece having (i) an outer surface, (ii) an inner surface which defines a passageway extending through the work piece, and (iii) an end. The method includes the steps of (A) advancing the work piece through a first induction coil such that a first hardened area is formed on the work piece, (B) advancing a second induction coil into the passageway of the work piece such that a second hardened area is formed on the work piece, and (C) positioning a third induction coil adjacent to the end of the work piece such that a third hardened area is formed on the work piece. The positioning the third induction coil step is performed after (i) the advancing the work piece through the first induction coil step and (ii) the advancing a second induction coil into the passageway step.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2000
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2002
    Assignee: Caterpillar Inc.
    Inventors: Peter W. Anderton, Fredric A. Woldow, Dennis C. Pond, Timothy G. Van Den Avond
  • Patent number: 6302974
    Abstract: An austenitic rounding fixture is inserted into the horizontal joint of a turbine casing. The casing is then assembled and stress relief cycle is carried out, resulting in rerounding of the casing and relief of residual stresses. Since an austenitic material has a higher thermal expansion coefficient than the metallic materials of conventional turbine casings, the rounding fixtures expand more than the casing during a stress relief cycle. The length of the fixtures are designed in such a way that at stress relief temperature the casing is slightly over-rounded. After the stress relief, the casing is rerounded and the austenitic rounding Fixtures is disengaged. The rounding fixture is installed in a cold condition (or with minimal heat for heavily collapsed casings). The removal of the rounding fixtures is easy since a clearance exists between the casing and the fixtures; the spring back of the casing is far less then the contraction of the fixtures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 16, 2001
    Assignee: ABB Power Generation
    Inventors: Peter L. Wilhelm, Bruno Stoeckli
  • Patent number: 6261392
    Abstract: The invention concerns a method for manufacturing quenched metal hollow casings of steel by blow-moulding whereby a preheated hollow casing billet, preferably above austenitising temperature, is introduced into a blow-moulding tool (1) and moulded by being expanded against the inner walls of the tool by the introduction of a preheated, pressurized medium into the interior cavity of the hollow casing, whereby the moulded hollow casing (6) is rapidly cooled in a process adapted to obtain quenching of the steel material by the dominating heated medium in the hollow casing being replaced by a pressurized cooling medium and that a cooling medium is led through the moulding tool to achieve its cooling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2001
    Assignee: Accra Teknik AB
    Inventors: Anders Sundgren, Mats Lindberg, Göran Berglund
  • Patent number: 6179936
    Abstract: A method for heat-treating a hollow cylindrical workpiece includes quench-hardening including a first step and a second step. In the first step, during continuously conveying the workpiece in a horizontal direction without a space between adjacent workpieces, an entirety of the workpiece is subjected to induction-heating conducted from an outside surface of the workpiece only, and a temperature of the workpiece is made uniform before the workpiece reaches a cooling portion spaced from a heating portion. Then, cooling the workpiece is initiated before the temperature of the workpiece falls to Ar3 temperature and an entire cross-section of a wall of the workpiece is quench-hardened. In the second step, during continuously conveying the workpiece in the horizontal direction, induction-heating is conducted only to an outside portion of the workpiece, the induction-heating being conducted from the outside surface only.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 1999
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2001
    Assignee: Topy Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Isao Yoshida, Kimio Goto, Hiroyuki Takeno, Masahiro Nakajima
  • Patent number: 6149376
    Abstract: A system, apparatus and method are disclosed for moving an elongate object such as a pipe between lowered and raised positions, preferably while rotating the object to maintain its shape. The system and method use two apparatuses, an upender and a downender for moving the pipe between lowered and raised positions. The upender tilts a lowered pipe received from a casting machine to the raised position and places the raised pipe on a support station. The pipe is rotated while on the upender through at least part of the range of travel. The upright pipe on the support station may be moved through an annealing furnace and then the downender may lift the pipe from the support station and tilt it downward toward the horizontal while rotating the pipe through part of the range of travel. The lowered pipe is then pushed off of the downender by kick off arms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 2, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2000
    Assignee: Amsted Industries Incorporated
    Inventor: Robert G. Peting
  • Patent number: 6048417
    Abstract: Conventional methods for heat treating cylindrical components such as track bushings involve multiple steps. For example, many such methods consist of carburizing, cooling, induction-hardening, quenching, and tempering. The conventional methods have proved to be costly because different heat treating apparatus are required. This causes duplicate handling and wasted manufacturing time. The present invention provides a method and apparatus 30 for heat treating a bushing 10 simultaneously from an outer peripheral surface and the pair of inner circumferential surfaces.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 1999
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2000
    Assignee: Caterpillar Inc.
    Inventor: Dennis C. Pond
  • Patent number: 5958158
    Abstract: The invention relates to a process for producing hot-worked elongated products, such as bars or tubes, from high-alloy or hypereutectoid steel in which a feedstock is heated to a deformation temperature and undergoes at least one deformation step. Following the at least one deformation step, the deformed feedstock is either cooled or heated at a specific temperature to achieve a uniform temperature distribution throughout the length and thickness of the deformed feedstock. Next the deformed feedstock is reheated to a temperature below the deformation temperature. The reheated feedstock is continuously rolled in a multi-stand reducing mill to its final size and then cooled by ambient air.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 1997
    Date of Patent: September 28, 1999
    Assignee: Mannesmann Aktiengesellschaft
    Inventors: Heinz Kron, Karlheinz Kutzenberger, Gunther Manig, Gustav Zouhar
  • Patent number: 5626693
    Abstract: This invention provides a method and apparatus for quenching a tubular workpiece such as cylindrical tubes or different-shaped tubes, which are difficult to be exerted constraining force for preventing warping especially in case of thinner thickness. Warping is prevented by applying a constraining force which is increased from beginning of the quenching to termination thereof, corresponding to increase of elasticity limit stress in accordance with temperature drop of the workpiece. Furthermore, apparatus for carrying out the method for quenching a tubular workpiece are offered, wherein the apparatus are provided with a pressure controller for pressure rolls or dies, thereby the pressure controller changes setting input for the pressure during the quenching.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 19, 1995
    Date of Patent: May 6, 1997
    Assignee: Neturen Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yugo Yao, Tetsukazu Fukuhara, Yoshiki Seto, Junichi Kato
  • Patent number: 5605587
    Abstract: Martensitic steel components of apparatus for magnetic conditioning of liquids which are subjected to cathodic reaction and degradation are treated prior to use to form a barrier of iron-chromium oxide and a uniform level of hardness throughout by heating the steel to a temperature near the grain boundary temperature of the steel, maintaining that temperature for a specified period and then rapidly quenching the steel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 7, 1995
    Date of Patent: February 25, 1997
    Assignee: Hydrodynamics Corporation
    Inventor: John H. Meckling
  • Patent number: 5188680
    Abstract: A method of making a tooth point and product wherein a tubular blank of alloy steel is heated, shaped at one end to provide a box section and shaped at the other end to provide a blade made up of two layers of steel forged together.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 1990
    Date of Patent: February 23, 1993
    Assignee: ESCO Corporation
    Inventors: Frederick C. Hahn, Andrew H. Ulven, James W. Huiras