Patent Application
20090255110
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electrodes and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for an electrical discharge machining electrode.
2. Description of the Related Art
An axial flow rotary machine, such as a gas turbine engine for an aircraft, has a compression section, a combustion section, and a turbine section. An annular flow path for working medium gases extends axially through the sections of the engine. The gases are compressed in the compression section to raise their temperature and pressure. Fuel is burned with the working medium gases in the combustion section to further increase the temperature of the hot, pressurized gases. The hot, working medium gases are expanded through the turbine section to produce thrust and to extract energy as rotational work from the gases. The rotational work is transferred to the compression section to raise the pressure of the incoming gases.
The compression section and turbine section have a rotor that extends axially through the engine. The rotor includes arrays of rotor blades that transfer rotational work between the rotor and the hot working medium gases. Each rotor blade has an airfoil for this purpose which extends outwardly across the working medium flow path. The working medium gases are directed through the airfoils. The airfoils in the turbine section receive energy from the working medium gases and drive the rotor at high speeds about an axis of rotation. The airfoils in the compression section transfer this energy to the working medium gases to compress the gases as the airfoils are driven about the axis of rotation by the rotor.
The engine includes a stator disposed about the rotor. The stator has an outer case and arrays of stator vanes that extend inwardly across the working medium flowpath. The arrays of stator vanes are disposed upstream of the arrays of rotor blades in both the compression section and turbine section. The stator vanes each have an airfoil for guiding the working medium gases to the rotor blades as the gases are flowed along the flow path. The airfoils of the stator vanes and the rotor blades are designed to receive, interact with and discharge the working medium gases as the gases are flowed through the engine.
Blades, vanes, airfoils, such as, for example, stator vanes, rotor blades, and airfoils described above, and other parts are generally designed with one or more holes, such as, for example, cooling holes. Removing heat from a surface is highly dependent on air flow through the cooling holes. By providing shaped cooling holes to diffuse the exiting air, heat can be removed more efficiently, allowing the surfaces of blades, vanes, airfoils, and the like to withstand higher temperatures. EDM (electrical discharge machining) uses electrodes for providing precisely shaped cooling holes.
Currently, electrodes are manufactured by a process of stamping or wire EDM. Wire EDM may be used for all electrode designs, however, is limited to low volume production due to the manufacturing process cycle time. Electrodes manufactured by stamping require tooling dies that have a long lead time, e.g., 10 months. Moreover, dies may have a tooling and design cost that exceeds $100,000.00. As a result, new airflow designs are undesirable due to expense and lengthy lead times of manufacturing new electrodes, and, thus, components such as, airfoils, vanes, and blades may be machined by existing electrodes having a less than optimum design. Furthermore, dies wear over time, adversely affecting the quality of electrodes made using the dies.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method of producing an electrical discharge machining electrode.
There is a further need for a method of producing an electrical discharge machining electrode having a reduced lead time and a reduced cost over the prior art.
In one aspect, an electrical discharge machining electrode including a body having one or more shaped teeth is provided. The one or more shaped teeth have a diffuser section and a metering section on the body and in electrical communication with the body. The body and the teeth are formed by a process of photochemically etching a substrate made from an electrically conductive material.
A method of producing an electrical discharge machining electrode is also provided. The method includes forming a body and one or more teeth on the body and in electrical communication with the body via a process comprising photochemically etching a substrate.
The process may further comprise creating a design of the electrical discharge machining electrode. The design may have substantially equal dimensions as the electrical discharge machining electrode. The process may further comprise producing a photo-tool of the design. The process may further comprise applying the photo-tool to the substrate to form a substrate photo-tool combination. The process may further comprise photochemically etching the substrate photo-tool combination. The design may be a two dimensional design. Creating the design may comprise generating the design by a computer. The design may comprise a computer generated two-dimensional design. The process may further comprise creating a design of the electrical discharge machining electrode. The process may further comprise producing a photo-tool of the based on the design.
The process may further comprise producing a photo-tool of the based on the design. The process may further comprise applying the photo-tool to the substrate forming a substrate photo-tool combination prior to the step of photo etching. The substrate may comprise the substrate photo-tool combination. Creating the design may comprise generating the design by a computer. The substrate may be made from an electrically conductive material. Creating the design may comprise creating a design by a process selected from the group consisting essentially of a photographic negative, a photocopy on a transparency, freehand drawing on a transparency, a raster or victor image file and port by laser photo porter, and any combination thereof. The photo-tool may be a photo-sensitive coating. Photochemically etching the substrate may comprise spraying the substrate with acidic etchant to remove a portion of the substrate not covered by the photo-tool. Producing the photo-tool may comprise producing a master of the electrical discharge machining electrode to produce a multiple negative containing one or more images of the electrical discharge machining electrode.
The above-described and other features and advantages of the present disclosure will be appreciated and understood by those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, drawings, and appended claims.
Referring now to
In an exemplary embodiment, the photochemical etching process uses a negative or a photo-tool of a design of electrode 10. Electrode 10 is designed as in step 50 of
The two dimensional computer generated design may be formed into the photo-tool 100, as illustrated in
The print-tool is applied or laminated onto a substrate 150, as shown in
The substrate and photo-tool combination is then photochemically etched 200, as shown in
The particular type, including materials, dimensions and shape, of electrode 10, photo-tool, substrate, and photochemical etch process that are utilized can vary according to the particular needs of electrode 10. Thus, electrodes may be manufactured with a reduced lead time, e.g., 2 to 3 weeks versus 10 months for stamped electrodes. Moreover, costly dies are eliminated along with die wear that affects electrode manufacturing tolerance. As a result, components may be machined by electrodes having an optimum design and new airflow configurations may be more frequently demonstrated.
While the instant disclosure has been described with reference to one or more exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope thereof. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the disclosure without departing from the scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiment(s) disclosed, but that the invention will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.
