US 12,233,461 B2
Powder metallurgy method using a four-wall cylindrical canister
Daniel A. Bales, Avon, CT (US); and Andrew L. Haynes, Glastonbury, CT (US)
Assigned to RTX CORPORATION, Farmington, CT (US)
Filed by United Technologies Corporation, Farmington, CT (US)
Filed on Oct. 2, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/590,644.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/747,840, filed on Oct. 19, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2020/0122233 A1, Apr. 23, 2020
Int. Cl. B22F 3/15 (2006.01)
CPC B22F 3/15 (2013.01) [B22F 2003/153 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A powder metallurgy method comprising:
a canister that has canister walls that define a hermetic chamber that circumscribes an open central region, the canister including a first, exterior wall, a second, interior wall spaced inwards from the first wall such that there is an annular space there between, a first end wall joining the first wall and the second wall, and a second end wall spaced from the first end wall and joining the first wall and the second wall, the first wall, the second wall, the first end wall, and the second end wall bounding there between the hermetic chamber;
inserting a metallic alloy powder into the hermetic chamber, followed by evacuating the hermetic chamber;
subjecting the canister with the metallic alloy powder in the hermetic chamber to a hot isostatic pressing process that includes heating the canister and the metallic alloy powder and applying isostatic pressure to the first wall and through the open central region to the second wall of the canister, the heating and the isostatic pressure causing inward deformation of the first wall and outward deformation of the second wall to compress the metallic alloy powder as the metallic alloy powder fuses and consolidates and thereby forms a solid workpiece; and
removing the canister from the solid workpiece.