A gearbox is provided having a housing, a gear having a plurality of teeth operationally configured within the housing, and a laser peening device located within the housing and configured to perform active laser peening on a predetermined surface of the gear while the gear is rotated within the housing. A method of maintaining compressive residual stresses in a gear is provided, the method including operating a gearbox to rotate a gear within the gearbox and laser peening a predetermined surface of the gear with a laser peening device located within the gearbox.

A method of additive manufacture suitable for large and high resolution structures is disclosed. The method may include sequentially advancing each portion of a continuous part in the longitudinal direction from a first zone to a second zone. In the first zone, selected granules of a granular material may be amalgamated. In the second zone, unamalgamated granules of the granular material may be removed. The method may further include advancing a first portion of the continuous part from the second zone to a third zone while (1) a last portion of the continuous part is formed within the first zone and (2) the first portion is maintained in the same position in the lateral and transverse directions that the first portion occupied within the first zone and the second zone.

A gear box having a carburized shaft and steel bearing assembly. The bearing includes an inner-race and an outer-race. The shaft includes a distal end surface extending perpendicularly from a shaft faying surface and a shaft annular beveled edge. The shaft faying surface is in intimate contact with the inner-race. The inner-race second annular face is coplanar with the distal end surface. The shaft annular beveled edge cooperates with the inner-race faying surface to define a half-V shaped groove. An annular weld joint is formed in the half-V shaped groove thereby joining the shaft to the inner-race. The outer-race includes a first width (W1) and the inner-race includes a second width (W2). W2 is wider than W1 by greater than 0 millimeters (mm) to about 10 mm.

The invention relates to a process for producing a large transmission gearwheel (1; 31; 36) consisting of a plurality of individual components, said process comprising the successive steps of: providing the individual components, which include at least one hub (2; 32; 37), a disc wheel (3, 4; 18, 19; 22; 24; 27; 33, 34; 38, 39) and a toothed ring (5; 20; 21; 23; 26; 35; 40) produced from case-hardened steel; at least partially mechanically soft machining the individual components; joining the individual components using a beam welding process; case hardening the individual components which have been joined to one another, and hard machining at least the toothed ring (5; 20; 21; 23; 26; 35; 40). The invention furthermore relates to a large transmission gearwheel produced by such a process.

A butt position detecting method for a weld joint, when an arrangement direction of a first member and a second member is defined as a first direction, and a direction that is perpendicular to the first direction is defined as a second direction, the first member has a corner portion and a chamfer portion, and a two-dimensional displacement sensor is arranged at a position offset from the butt portion toward the first member side in the first direction, and such that an angle s at which the second direction and an optical axis direction of irradiation light of the two-dimensional displacement sensor intersect with each other and an angle a at which the second direction and a formation direction of the chamfer portion of the first member intersect with each other satisfy a condition expression: 0<s<a.

A system of components includes a first component including a first joint portion, and a second component including a second joint portion abutting the first component. At least one of the first and second components is formed from cast iron. The first joint portion and the second joint portion, when aligned, form a V-Shaped groove having a groove opening, a groove bottom angle of between about 10 and about 20 and a weld nugget envelope defined therebetween. The groove opening is wider than an outer diameter of a filler wire employed to form a metallurgical bond between the first component and the second component.

A sprocket assembly, formed of dissimilar materials, includes at least one tooth member made of ferrous material and a circular disk made of a light metal such as aluminum or an aluminum alloy. The circular disk supports the tooth member on an outer peripheral surface thereof. The tooth member is dissimilar-metal welded to the circular disk, either by laser welding or by electronic beam welding. Optionally, multiple individual tooth members may be fitted into notches formed in an outer periphery of the circular disk, and welded therein. A method of making a sprocket assembly is also described.

Additive manufacturing can involve dispensing a powdered material to form a layer of a powder bed on a support surface of a build platform. A portion of the layer of the powder bed may be selectively melted or fused to form one or more temporary walls out of the fused portion of the layer of the powder bed to contain another portion of the layer of the powder bed on the build platform

A weld structure includes a fitting portion at which a first member and a second member are engaged, a weld portion at which the first member and the second member are welded together, and a space between the fitting portion and the weld portion. One of the first member and the second member has a communication passage whose one end is open to the space and whose other end is open to an outside at a position other than the space. The communication passage is blocked by an insertion member that has a predetermined function in addition to blocking the communication passage.

An additive manufacturing system including a two-dimensional energy patterning system for imaging a powder bed is disclosed. Improved structure formation, part creation and manipulation, use of multiple additive manufacturing systems, and high throughput manufacturing methods suitable for automated or semi-automated factories are also disclosed.