Granted Patent B2

US 12,605,768 · App. 18/495,808 · Granted Apr 21, 2026

Inventors: Stanley Frank Simpson (Greenville, SC); Mark Lawrence Hunt (Greenville, SC); Jacob Andrew Salm (Simpsonville, SC); James Warren Pemrick (Troy, NY); Nathan Nicholas Ostrout (Greenville, SC)

Assignee: GE Infrastructure Technology LLC

B22F10/38B22F3/26B22F10/28B22F10/85B23P6/005B33Y10/00B33Y50/00B33Y80/00B22F2207/17B22F2998/10B23P6/007

Abstract

Claims (19)

1 . A method of repairing a component, the method comprising:

additively manufacturing a metal coupon having a low porosity region in an interior thereof and a porous region that completely surrounds the low porosity region, wherein the low porosity region has a porosity lower than the porous region;

positioning the metal coupon in a coupon opening in a body of the component; and

infiltrating the metal coupon with a braze material to couple the metal coupon in the coupon opening to the body with the low porosity region therein, the braze material infiltrated into the porous region.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the additive manufacturing step includes additively manufacturing the metal coupon with a near net shape of the coupon opening.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the porous region is a variably porous region having a variable porosity with two or more porous sub-regions having different porosities.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the additive manufacturing step includes forming the metal coupon with a near net shape of the coupon opening.

5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the additive manufacturing step includes forming the variably porous region with an outer porous sub-region adjacent an exterior surface of the metal coupon that has a higher porosity than an inner porous sub-region adjacent the low porosity region, wherein, after the infiltrating, the outer porous sub-region includes more braze material therein than the inner porous sub-region.

6 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising, prior to the additive manufacturing step:

creating the coupon opening in the body of the component configured to receive the metal coupon; and

creating a model of the coupon opening,

wherein the additive manufacturing step includes manufacturing the metal coupon based on the model of the coupon opening.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the additive manufacturing step includes additively manufacturing the metal coupon with a near net shape of the coupon opening based on the model of the coupon opening.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the low porosity region has a porosity in a range of 0% to 5%.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the additive manufacturing step includes using a system having one or more melting beam sources to fuse together layers of a metal powder, and the method further comprises adjusting a parameter of the system to control the porosity of the porous region and the low porosity region.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the adjusting a parameter step comprises at least one of:

adjusting an amount of overlap of a melting area of the one or more melting beam sources;

adjusting scanning speed; or

adjusting at least one of melting beam spot size, focus, or power.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (150)