Patent Application
20230271378
The present disclosure relates generally to break-wire conductors used to detect cracks in parts and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to break-wire conductors that are additively manufactured.
This section provides background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the disclosure. It should be understood that the statements in this section of this document are to be read in this light and not as admissions of prior art.
Detection of cracks in parts or an assembly thereof during, for example, fatigue testing presents challenges, in part due to the difficulty of predicting a crack initiation site. A typical method involves installation of a break-wire conductor (e.g., a weak copper wire), a failure of which opens a circuit such that the presence of a crack is indicated. The typical method often relies on manual labor for the break-wire conductor installation and can therefore be particularly difficult and unreliable when the installation is on complex geometries or small areas of a component or assembly.
This summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts that are further described below in the detailed description. This summary is not necessarily intended to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in limiting the scope of claimed subject matter.
A method of producing an article of manufacture includes printing a break-wire conductive-material pattern via an additive-manufacturing process and applying the break-wire conductive-material pattern to a surface of a component. A shape of the break-wire conductive-material pattern fits the surface of the component.
An article of manufacture includes a base material and a break-wire conductive-material pattern integrated with the base material. The base material and the break-wire conductive-material pattern are additively manufactured via a 3D printer.
An article of manufacture includes a component and a break-wire conductive-material pattern printed via an additive-manufacturing process and applied to a surface of the component. A shape of the break-wire conductive-material pattern fits the surface of the component.
The disclosure is best understood from the following detailed description when read with the accompanying figures. It is emphasized that, in accordance with standard practice in the industry, various features are not drawn to scale. In fact, the dimensions of various features may be arbitrarily increased or reduced for clarity of discussion.
Various embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. The disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Various embodiments discussed herein can be employed in a test environment or in parts and assemblies in use in the field and provide a less labor-intensive and more repeatable break-wire solution than prior approaches.
The print head 200 is fed with a conductive-material feed 202 that can be used to print break-wire conductive material and a support-material feed 204 that can be used to print a support material, the support material often being a substrate dissolvable, for example, in water. The break-wire conductive material can be used to print a break-wire conductive-material pattern that can be applied to an existing component or assembly.
The conductive-material feed 202 is used to print the break-wire conductive-material pattern 604 and a base-material feed 606 used to print the component 602, which components together form the assembly 600. As discussed above and although not illustrated in
In a typical embodiment, the component 602 is composed of a non-conductive material such as, for example, a non-conductive plastic. In other embodiments, in the event the component 602 is made of a conductive base material, a third, non-conductive, material can be printed in a fashion to provide a barrier between the component 602 and the break-wire conductive-material pattern 604. It will be apparent that the approach illustrated in
The term “substantially” is defined as largely but not necessarily wholly what is specified (and includes what is specified; e.g., substantially 90 degrees includes 90 degrees and substantially parallel includes parallel), as understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art. In any disclosed embodiment, the terms “substantially,” “approximately,” “generally,” and “about” may be substituted with “within 10% of” what is specified.
Depending on the embodiment, certain acts, events, or functions of any of the algorithms described herein can be performed in a different sequence, can be added, merged, or left out altogether (e.g., not all described acts or events are necessary for the practice of the algorithms). Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts or events can be performed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing, interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores or on other parallel architectures, rather than sequentially. Although certain computer-implemented tasks are described as being performed by a particular entity, other embodiments are possible in which these tasks are performed by a different entity.
Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “might,” “may,” “e.g.,” and the like, unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certain features, elements and/or states. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended to imply that features, elements and/or states are in any way required for one or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without author input or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or states are included or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.
While the above detailed description has shown, described, and pointed out novel features as applied to various embodiments, it will be understood that various omissions, substitutions, and changes in the form and details of the devices or algorithms illustrated can be made without departing from the spirit of the disclosure. As will be recognized, the processes described herein can be embodied within a form that does not provide all of the features and benefits set forth herein, as some features can be used or practiced separately from others. The scope of protection is defined by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description. All changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.
