Patent ID: 7255260

Claim:
A process for manufacturing a hollow mechanical part by diffusion bonding and superplastic forming, comprising: a) providing at least two primary parts, said two primary parts having two faces and a periphery; b) depositing a stop-off product in a predefined pattern on at least one face among each pair of those faces of the primary parts that are intended to face each other; c) providing a reservoir having only one open end, the reservoir being produced so as to be non-deformable at the temperature and pressure at which the material of the primary parts undergoes diffusion bonding; d) joining said primary parts together around their periphery with the exception of a place forming a passage, the primary parts forming a stack and defining, pairwise between them, a cavity that communicates with the passage; e) placing the stack and the reservoir in a chamber under a partial vacuum of the chamber, thereby the internal volume of said reservoir is placed under a partial vacuum; f) making a sealed join between the open end of said reservoir and the passage of the stack in the chamber under partial vacuum, so as to form an assembly allowing communication between the internal space of the reservoir and the cavity; g) heating said chamber to the thermal degradation temperature of the binder, thereby allowing the gases resulting from the degradation of the binder to be sucked into the reservoir; h) heating said chamber to the diffusion bonding temperature and pressurized to the diffusion bonding pressure, which causes said stack to undergo hot isostatic pressing diffusion bonding; i) separating said reservoir from the bonded stack; j) placing the bonded stack in a mould; and k) bringing the mould to the superplastic forming temperature and an inert gas is injected under the superplastic forming pressure via the passage in the cavity, whereby the stack undergoes inflation and superplastic forming, allowing a blank of the mechanical part to be obtained.