General Electric Company

Andrew Charles Powis

Jonathan Philip Clarke

Judd Dodge Tressler

Brian Keith

Robert Alan Frederick

Ronald Eugene McRae, Jr

Edward Eugene Gibler

Jonathan Jordan Peterman

Duane Busch

Gunnar Leif Siden

David John Humanchuk

Mark Edward Stegemiller

Wilson Frost

Peter Paul Pirolla

Cedric Carlton Lowe

Melissa Wise Starkweather

Joel Barreto

Brian David Keith

A method for assembling a turbine nozzle for a gas turbine engine. The method includes providing a turbine nozzle including a plurality of airfoil vanes extending between an inner band and an outer band, wherein the outer band includes a forward hook assembly having a rail and at least one hook, providing at least one scalloped recessed area within the forward hook assembly at least one hook to facilitate reducing stresses induced to the turbine nozzle, and coupling the turbine nozzle into the gas turbine engine using the forward hook assembly such that the turbine nozzle is at least partially supported by the forward hook assembly.

Methods and apparatus for assembling turbine nozzles

A method for assembling a turbine nozzle for a gas turbine engine facilitates improving cooling efficiency of the turbine nozzle. The method includes providing a hollow doublet including a leading airfoil and a trailing airfoil coupled by at least one platform, wherein each airfoil includes a first sidewall and a second sidewall that extend between a respective leading and trailing edge. The method also includes inserting an insert into at least one of the airfoils, wherein the insert includes a first sidewall including a first plurality of cooling openings that extending therethrough, and a second sidewall including a second plurality of cooling openings extending therethrough, and wherein the first plurality of cooling openings facilitate more cooling of the airfoil than the second plurality of cooling openings.

Methods and apparatus for cooling gas turbine nozzles

A turbine shroud assembly asymmetrical cooling element such as a shroud segment or a baffle includes an arcuate panel. The panel has a plurality of cooling apertures extending through the panel and an axially extending midline of the panel parallel to an axis of rotation of the arcuate panel. A symmetric portion of the cooling apertures have a symmetrical density of aperture inlets that is symmetric with respect to the axially extending midline. An asymmetric portion of the cooling apertures have an asymmetrical density of aperture inlets that is asymmetric with respect to the axially extending midline. One exemplary cooling element includes a high density area of the cooling apertures in the asymmetric portion having a higher density of aperture inlets than in the symmetric portion. A low density area of the cooling apertures in the asymmetric portion has a lower density of aperture inlets than in the symmetric portion of the cooling apertures.

Turbine shroud asymmetrical cooling elements

A turbine nozzle bifurcated impingement baffle includes axially forward and aft chambers with a gap therebetween, impingement holes through forward and aft baffle walls of the forward and aft chambers respectively, and a plenum chamber in fluid flow communication with the forward and aft chambers. An exemplary embodiment of the bifurcated impingement baffle further includes a single cooling air inlet to the plenum chamber enclosed within a plenum chamber enclosure the plenum chamber. A sealing plate is mounted between and sealed to the plenum chamber enclosure and the forward and aft chambers. The sealing plate has forward and aft inlet apertures disposed between the plenum chamber and the forward and aft chambers respectively. Forward and aft end plates cap radially inner ends of the forward and aft chambers. An outlet aperture in the forward end plate has an interstage seal cavity feed tube disposed therethrough.

Gas turbine engine turbine nozzle bifurcated impingement baffle

A turbine nozzle includes outer and inner bands integrally joined to a doublet of hollow vanes extending radially therebetween. Each of the vanes includes opposite pressure and suction sidewalls extending between opposite leading and trailing edges, and spaced apart to define an internal plenum extending radially between the bands for receiving an air coolant. The vanes are spaced apart from each other to define a flow passage for channeling hot combustion gases which are bound by corresponding pressure and suction sidewalls of the vanes facing inboard toward each other, with the remaining suction and pressure sidewalls of the vanes facing outboard. The vanes include different cooling configurations to bias more of the coolant to the inboard sidewalls than to the outboard sidewalls.

Inboard cooled nozzle doublet

A turbine nozzle segment includes a single hollow airfoil extending radially between radially outer and inner band segments. The airfoil has an airfoil wall with pressure and suction sides extending axially between leading and trailing edges of the airfoil. The airfoil wall surrounds a bifurcated cavity and a bifurcating rib extends through the bifurcated cavity and between the pressure and suction sides of the airfoil wall dividing the bifurcated cavity into forward and aft cavities. A stiffening rib extends radially outwardly from and along a radially outer surface of the outer band segment and axially and circumferentially from a pressure side forward corner of the outer band segment to the bifurcating rib. The outer and inner band segments, the bifurcating rib, and the stiffening rib are integral and made from a unitary one-piece casting.

Gas turbine engine turbine nozzle segment with a single hollow vane having a bifurcated cavity

A turbine nozzle segment includes at least one hollow airfoil extending radially between radially outer and inner band segments, a clockwise open hook on a clockwise end at an aft end of the outer band segment, and counter-clockwise open hook on a counter-clockwise end at the aft end of the outer band segments. An exemplary embodiment of the turbine nozzle segment includes a load stop extending radially outwardly from the outer band segment. At least one aftwardly facing load face is at the aft end of the nozzle segment at the outer band segment. The clockwise open hook is C-shaped and the counter-clockwise open hook is a shiplap hook. Another embodiment of the turbine nozzle segment has only one hollow airfoil with an airfoil wall surrounding a bifurcated cavity divided into forward and aft cavities by a bifurcating rib extending between pressure and suction sides of the airfoil wall.

Turbine nozzle segment cantilevered mount

A method for assembling a turbine nozzle for a gas turbine engine facilitates improving cooling efficiency of the turbine nozzle. The method includes providing a hollow doublet including a leading airfoil and a trailing airfoil coupled by at least one platform, wherein each airfoil includes a first sidewall and a second sidewall that extend between a respective leading and trailing edge. The method also includes inserting an insert into at least one of the airfoils, wherein the insert includes a first sidewall including a first plurality of cooling openings that extending therethrough, and a second sidewall including a second plurality of cooling openings extending therethrough, and wherein the first plurality of cooling openings facilitate more airfoil vane sidewall cooling than the second plurality of cooling openings.

A turbine nozzle for a gas turbine engine includes a hollow airfoil vane including a first wall, a second wall, and a plurality of pins extending therebetween. The nozzle also includes at least one row of turbulators. The first and second walls are connected at a leading edge and a trailing edge. The first wall includes a plurality of slots extending towards the trailing edge, and the row of turbulators are substantially radially-aligned and extend between the plurality of slot and the pins.

The fourth-stage buckets have airfoil profiles substantially in accordance with Cartesian coordinate values of X, Y and Z set forth in inches in Table I wherein Z is a perpendicular distance from a plane normal to a radius of the turbine centerline and containing the X and Y values with the Z value commencing at zero in the X, Y plane at the radially innermost aerodynamic section of the airfoil and X and Y are coordinate values defining the airfoil profile at each distance Z. The X, Y and Z values may be scaled as a function of the same constant or number to provide a scaled-up or scaled-down airfoil section for the bucket.

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Madeira, OH, United States of America

Andrew Charles Powis