General Electric Company

Andrew Breeze-Stringfellow

Darek Tomasz Zatorski

Kurt David Murrow

Syed Arif Khalid

Daniel Lawrence Tweedt

Dominic L Barone

Randy M Vondrell

Tsuguji Nakano

Peter Nicholas Szucs

John Jared Decker

David Scott Clark

Aspi Rustom Wadia

Ian Francis Prentice

William Joseph Bowden

Nicholas Joseph Kray

Daniel Edward Mollmann

Richard David Cedar

Jeffrey Anthony Hamel

Leroy H Smith, Jr

Sara Elizabeth Carle

Brent Franklin Beacher

Daniel Allen Wilkin, Ii

Brandon Wayne Miller

Thomas Ory Moniz

Paul Hadley Vitt

Peter John Wood

William Joseph Solomon

Michael Harvey Schneider

Thomas Richard Henning

Eric Andrew Falk

Anthony Louis DiPietro, Jr

John Douglas Mickol

Ching-Pang Lee

Daniel Alan Niergarth

Christopher Charles Glynn

Trevor Howard Wood

Kishore Ramakrishnan

Nitesh Jain

Alan Roy Stuart

Manampathy Gangadharan Giridharan

Richard Ludwig Schmidt

Chellappa Balan

Christopher James Kroger

Matthew William Wiseman

Donald Albert Bradley

Jixian Yao

Arun Kumar

Mark Joseph Mielke

James Edwin Rhoda

Kiyoung Chung

Donald Scott Yeager

Nicholas Rowe Dinsmore

Max Robert Farson

Trevor Wayne Goerig

Craig Miller Kuhne

Brendan Michael Freely

Gregory T Steinmetz

Joseph Capozzi

Patrick John Lonneman

Michael James McMahon

Gary B Manharth

Curtis Moeckel

Jeffrey Scott Allen

Samuel Jacob Martin

Gregory Scott McNulty

Sherif Alykadry Abdelfattah

Gary Robert Peters

David Paul Lurie

Michael Julian Castillo

David K Christensen

Rajkeshar Singh

Kyle Louis Miller

Aamir Shabbir

Kevin Stephen Hansell

Timothy James Horejs

Swati Saxena

Raymond Anthony Humble

Aleksander Piotr Pasieczny

Christopher Robert Berndt

Tyler James Alexander

Leroy Harrington Smith

Darek T Zatorski

Dominic Barone

Michael Mcmahon

Anthony Louis Dipietro

Richard Mark Donaldson

An aircraft defines a vertical direction and includes a fuselage and a propulsion system comprising a power source and a plurality of vertical thrust electric fans driven by the power source. A wing extends from the fuselage. The plurality of vertical thrust electric fans are arranged along a length of the wing along a lengthwise direction of the wing. The wing comprises a diffusion assembly along the lengthwise direction of the wing and includes a first diffusion member positioned downstream of at least one of the plurality of vertical thrust electric fans. The first diffusion member defines a curved shape relative to a longitudinal direction of the aircraft. The longitudinal direction is generally perpendicular to the lengthwise direction of the wing.

Vertical takeoff and landing aircraft

The present disclosure is generally related to aircraft having one or more unducted fan propulsors at locations within specific regions relative to an airfoil, such as a wing or horizontal stabilizer. More specifically, the specific regions are located where there is a relatively higher pressure air flow beneath the wings or above a horizontal stabilizer. That higher pressure air flow can be utilized to provide increased thrust from the unducted fan propulsor.

Aircraft with an unducted fan propulsor

A propulsion system is provided, the propulsion system including a rotor assembly configured to rotate relative to the engine centerline axis, and wherein one or more blades of the rotor assembly are configured to rotate along a blade pitch angle axis. A vane assembly is positioned in aerodynamic relationship with the rotor assembly. The vane assembly includes one or more vanes, wherein each vane includes a vane pitch angle. A controller is configured to execute operations, the operations including moving each blade to a reverse thrust position about its respective blade pitch axis, and adjusting each vane about its respective vane pitch axis when the plurality of blades is in the reverse thrust position to modify an amount of reverse thrust generated by the propulsion system.

Unducted single rotor engine and method for operation

A shroud assembly for a turbine engine having a centerline axis. The shroud assembly having a shroud hanger, at least one shroud segment, and at least one biasing element extending between the two. The biasing element configured to radially bias the at least one shroud segment between an outboard position and an inboard position radially outward from the outboard position with respect to the centerline axis.

Turbine engine with a shroud assembly

An unducted thrust producing system, includes a rotating element, a stationary element. An inlet may be located forward or aft of the rotating element and the stationary element. An exhaust may be located forward, aft, or between the rotating element and the stationary element.

Unducted thrust producing system architecture

There is provided apparatuses and methods for a gas turbine engine. The embodiments include a core section with a flow path. The flow path includes a stator vane array having outlet vanes. Each outlet vane has a trailing edge. A strut has a leading edge that is upstream of the trailing edges. Alternatively, the flow path includes a stator vane array having inlet vanes. Each inlet vane has a leading edge. The strut has a trailing edge that is downstream of the leading edges. There also is increased spacing between adjacent vanes and rotor blades.

Gas turbine engines with improved guide vane configurations

An aircraft equipped with a distributed fan propulsion system and methods of operating such aircraft are provided. In one aspect, an aircraft includes a wing having a top surface and a bottom surface. The aircraft also has a distributed propulsion system that includes a suction fan array having one or more fans mounted to the wing and a pressure fan array having one or more fans mounted to the wing. The fans of the suction fan array are each positioned primarily above the top surface of the wing and the fans of the pressure fan array are each positioned primarily below the bottom surface of the wing. The fans of the suction fan array are controllable independent of the fans of the pressure fan array so that the air pressure above and/or below the wing can be locally controlled, allowing for adjustment of lift on the wing.

Aircraft equipped with a distributed propulsion system having suction and pressure fans

A gas turbine engine is provided including a turbine section including a turbine having a plurality of first speed turbine rotor blades; a compressor section including a compressor having a plurality of first speed compressor rotor blades and a plurality of second speed compressor rotor blades; a gearbox; and a first spool rotatable by the plurality of first speed turbine rotor blades, the first spool coupled to the plurality of first speed compressor rotor blades for driving the plurality of first speed compressor rotor blades in a first direction and to the plurality of second speed compressor rotor blades across the gearbox for driving the plurality of second speed compressor rotor blades in a second direction, opposite the first direction.

Turbomachine with alternatingly spaced rotor blades

A single unducted rotor engine includes a power source; a casing surrounding the power source; an unducted rotor assembly driven by the power source having a single row of rotor blades; and an outlet guide vane assembly having a plurality of pairs of outlet guide vanes, each pair of the plurality of pairs of outlet guide vanes including a first outlet guide vane extending from the casing at a location downstream from the single row of rotor blades of the unducted rotor assembly and a second outlet guide vane also positioned downstream from the single row of rotor blades of the unducted rotor assembly. The first outlet guide vane of each pair of outlet guide vanes defines a first geometry. The second outlet guide vane of each pair of outlet guide vanes defines a second geometry. The first geometry is not equal to the second geometry.

Gas turbine engine outlet guide vane assembly

A turbo machine, a computer-implemented method, and a computer system for operating a compressor assembly are provided. The method includes comparing a first data set and a second data set to determine a first correlation factor, comparing the first correlation factor to a first threshold that at least partially determines whether a stall precursor exists, removing mean values from the first data set and the second data set, comparing the first data set and the second data set each removed of mean values to determine a second correlation factor, and comparing the second correlation factor to the first threshold, and classifying the stall precursor as either a spike stall precursor, a modal stall precursor, or a combination stall precursor.

System and method for operating a compressor assembly

A lift fan apparatus includes: a rotor having at least one rotatable hub carrying at least one row of blades; a duct surrounding the rotor, the duct including spaced-apart peripheral walls extending between an inlet and an exit, the peripheral walls collectively defining a flow channel which includes a diffuser disposed downstream of the rotor, in which a flow area at the exit is greater than a flow area at the rotor; and a plurality of spaced-apart splitters disposed in the diffuser, each of the splitters having opposed side walls extending between an upstream leading edge and a downstream trailing edge, wherein the splitters divide the diffuser into a plurality of side-by-side flow passages.

Lift fan with diffuser duct

A fan for a gas turbine engine includes: an annular casing; a disk disposed inside the casing and mounted for rotation about an axial centerline, the disk including a row of fan blades extending radially outwardly therefrom; each of the fan blades including an airfoil having circumferentially opposite pressure and suction sides extending radially in span from a root to a tip, and extending axially in chord between spaced-apart leading and trailing edges, with the airfoils defining corresponding flow passages therebetween for pressurizing air; the row including no more than 21 and no less than 13 of the fan blades; and wherein each of the fan blades has a solidity defined by a ratio of the airfoil chord over a circumferential pitch of the fan blades, measured at 60% of a radial distance from the root to the tip, of less than about 1.6.

Aircraft fan with low part-span solidity

Growing community of inventors

Montgomery, OH, United States of America

Andrew Breeze-Stringfellow