Wind and Nuclear Component Forging Patents: Top Filers & Trends 2026
- Filing nearly doubled in three years. records tied to ring forging and ring rolling processes grew from 14 in 2021 to 31 in 2024, a +121% rise, even as the top of the field stays open to new entrants.
- The leader board is concentrated but not locked. the top 5 assignees hold 26.4% of all 500 records and the top 10 hold 40.8%, leaving well over half the field to a long tail of single- and low-count filers.
- China dominates the filing venue. 171 of the tracked records were filed via a China receiving office, more than the United States (98) and EPO (73) combined, reshaping where freedom-to-operate checks matter most.
Filing growth compares 2021 (14 records) with 2024 (31) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 500 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent activity at the intersection of ring forging, ring rolling and heavy-section metallurgy with nuclear reactor pressure vessel and main shaft forging technology, drawn from records published between 2015 and mid-2026. The search string pairs forging-and-rolling process terms with metallurgical and quality-control concepts — grain flow orientation, fracture toughness, machining allowance and heavy section welding — so the corpus captures both the forming process and the material-integrity claims that ride alongside it.
The 500 records in scope span forging and rolling equipment classes (B21J, B21H, B21K) alongside nuclear reactor classes (G21C) and material testing and alloy classes, reflecting a field where a single component — a main shaft or a reactor vessel ring — can draw claims from process, material and inspection angles at once.
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Filing trends and technology composition
Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the final one or two years in any trend chart are still filling in — treat the most recent bars as a floor, not a ceiling.
A field that accelerated sharply after 2021
Annual filings rose from 22 in 2017 to a peak of 31 in 2024, with the steepest climb concentrated in 2021-2024 (+121%). Because 2025 and 2026 figures are still incomplete due to publication lag, the apparent tail-off at the end of the series should not be read as a slowdown.
Forging and rolling classes dominate, nuclear classes run a strong second
B21J (forging and hammering) and B21H (rolling of metal articles) each cover close to a third of the 500 records — 31.6% and 29.6% respectively — confirming that process claims, not just end-use claims, are where most of the filing activity sits. G21C (nuclear reactors) appears in 19.0% of records, meaning close to a fifth of the corpus ties a forging or rolling claim directly to reactor hardware rather than to a generic industrial shaft or ring.
Shares are the percentage of the 500 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Wind and Nuclear Component Forging with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about wind and nuclear component forging and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaRepresentative and most-cited filings
Integral forming method for axial special-shaped ring forging (EP4501485A1)
The filing describes a multi-step process for forging and axially rolling a special-shaped ring: heating and multi-directional forging, punching an upsetting cake, a pre-rolling heat step, and a final axial rolling stage that seats a heated ring blank into intermediate rigid molds fitted with axial grooves and cooperating core rollers.Filed by Wuxi Paike New Materials Technology Co. Ltd., published 2025-02-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US5817958A | Plant monitoring and diagnosing method and system, as well as plant equipped with the system | 117 |
| 2 | WO2015006447A1 | Methods for producing forged products and other worked products | 115 |
| 3 | EP0626697A1 | Plant monitoring and diagnosing method and system, as well as plant equipped with the system | 108 |
| 4 | US4196047A | Irradiation surveillance specimen assembly | 101 |
| 5 | US6794776B1 | Inductor alternator flywheel system | 94 |
| 6 | US5623109A | Plant monitoring and diagnosing method and system, as well as plant equipped with the system | 88 |
| 7 | US5682409A | Neutron fluence surveillance capsule holder modification for boiling water reactor | 77 |
| 8 | CN101279343A | 不锈钢异形环锻件的辗轧成形方法 | 71 |
| 9 | US6776214B2 | Centrifugal casting of titanium alloys with improved surface quality, structural integrity and mechanical pro… | 65 |
| 10 | CN101279345A | 钛合金异形环锻件的辗轧成形方法 | 62 |
Citation counts favour older records that have had more time to accumulate citations inside this corpus; treat them as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the record counts are read against their denominators rather than in isolation.
A leader, then a wide, competitive band
The leading assignee holds 37 records against a fifth-place count of 17 and a tenth-place count of 13 — a sharp drop-off after the leader, then a much flatter curve. That shape says the leader has an entrenched process position, but ranks two through ten are still separated by only a handful of filings each.
Acceleration is recent, not historical
The three-year run to 2024 shows the field roughly doubling in filing volume, concentrated in exactly the years just before the data cut-off. Because 2025-2026 records are still arriving due to publication lag, this is the most defensible growth window in the dataset.
China is the primary filing venue by volume
China's 171 records outnumber the United States and EPO combined, with Japan (41), WIPO/PCT (33) and Canada (17) trailing further behind. A freedom-to-operate review that skips Chinese-language prior art in this space is reviewing well under half the field.
Process claims outweigh end-use claims
Forging (B21J) and rolling (B21H) classes each touch close to a third of the corpus, ahead of nuclear-specific G21C at 19.0%. That gap suggests the process mechanics of forming a ring or shaft are contested ground independent of whether the end application is a wind main shaft or a reactor vessel.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to wind and nuclear component forging, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the field is still open
The 100-company ranking behind this landscape is the full set the data endpoint returns, not a curated top tier — read it as the whole visible field, weighted heavily toward its first few names.
One filer sets the pace, aerospace and nuclear names follow
The leading assignee's 37 records sit well ahead of fifth place (17) and tenth place (13), with aerospace forging specialists and nuclear equipment makers occupying much of the upper ranking. Momentum data for several established names in the latest tracked year shows zero new filings, consistent with a mature core portfolio rather than active current expansion.
Co-filing is limited and mostly domestic
Only ten co-assignee pairs appear across the 500 records, and the strongest pair — two Chinese aerospace forging entities filing together three times — points to supply-chain or joint-venture filing rather than broad industry consortia. Co-filing is the exception here, not the norm.
The field is more open than the leader board suggests
With the top 10 holding 40.8% of the 500 records, well over half the corpus is spread across the remaining ranked companies and unranked filers. That is room for a new entrant with a defensible process claim, particularly outside the aerospace-forging and nuclear-OEM cluster that dominates the upper ranking.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoa Corp | 0 | — |
| Guizhou Anda Aviation Forging Co., Ltd. | 0 | — |
| Westinghouse Electric Corp | 0 | — |
| Eaton Corp | 0 | — |
| Guizhou Aviation Technology Development Co., Ltd. | 0 | -100% |
| Hitachi, Ltd. | 0 | — |
| THORIZON HLDG BV | 0 | -100% |
| Chemrec USA Inc. | 0 | — |
Where to take this from here
The dataset points to three follow-up checks before committing a filing or freedom-to-operate budget to this space.
Run a China-first prior art search
With 171 of 500 records filed via a China receiving office, any clearance search that starts in English-language databases alone is missing the largest single venue in the field.
Search this landscape in EurekaMap claims against the axial ring-rolling cluster
The representative filing on axial special-shaped ring forging sits in a technically dense but not yet heavily contested corner of the corpus — worth a claim chart before assuming the space is clear.
Build a claim chart in EurekaTrack the post-2024 filing wave as it publishes
Because 2025-2026 records are still arriving under normal publication lag, a watch alert on new publications in this search string will catch the real trajectory before it shows up in aggregate charts.
Set up a monitoring alert in EurekaFrequently asked questions
One assignee leads the ranked field with 37 records, well ahead of the fifth-place holder at 17 and tenth place at 13. The gap between first and second place is sharp, but from around fifth place downward the counts flatten out, meaning no single company controls the field the way the leader's headline number might suggest. The ranking covers 100 companies in total and includes both aerospace forging specialists and nuclear equipment makers among the higher-placed names.
Filing grew sharply in the years leading up to the most recent complete data, rising from 14 records in 2021 to 31 in 2024 — a 121% increase over three years. The apparent drop in 2025 and 2026 is a publication-lag artefact, not a real slowdown: patent publication typically trails filing by around 18 months, so the last one to two years in any trend chart are always undercounted. Based on the confirmed 2021-2024 trajectory, the field was accelerating, not cooling, at the point the data was cut off.
Forging and hammering (B21J) and rolling of metal articles (B21H) are the two largest classes, covering 31.6% and 29.6% of the 500 records respectively. Nuclear reactors (G21C) appears in 19.0% of records, forged metal products (B21K) in 17.4%, and material analysis and testing (G01N) in 10.2%. Because a single record can carry several IPC codes, these shares add up to more than 100% and should not be read as mutually exclusive slices of a pie.
China is the largest single receiving office by volume in this dataset, with 171 records, ahead of the United States (98) and the European Patent Office (73). Japan (41), the WIPO PCT route (33) and Canada (17) follow at lower volumes. A filing or clearance strategy that only covers the US and Europe would be reviewing well under half of the visible activity in this landscape.
EP4501485A1 describes an integral forming method for an axial special-shaped ring forging, filed by Wuxi Paike New Materials Technology Co. Ltd. and published in early 2025. Its claims cover a specific sequence — multi-directional forging, punching an upsetting cake, a pre-rolling heat step, and axial rolling using intermediate rigid molds with axial grooves and cooperating core rollers — rather than ring forging or axial rolling in general. Work that uses a different mold or heating sequence to reach an axially rolled special-shaped ring would sit outside these specific process-step claims, though a claim-by-claim comparison is needed before relying on that distinction.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.