General Electric Company

Ariel C Jacala

R Paul Chiu

Ching-Pang Lee

Gary Michael Itzel

Fred W Staub

Michael Adelbert Sullivan

Richard Mallory Davis

Brent A Gregory

A bucket has an airfoil, a root and a platform between the root and airfoil. The airfoil includes a serpentine cooling circuit, and the platform includes plural cavities, one or more cavities each having a serpentine cooling circuit. Cooling medium is drawn from one of the passages of the airfoil cooling circuit for flow in the platform cooling circuit and for return either to another passage of the airfoil circuit or to a trailing edge exit. The platform cooling circuits thus convectively cool both high and low pressure sides of the platform.

Apparatus and methods for cooling turbine bucket platforms

A turbine blade includes an airfoil having a root, tip cap, and laterally opposite pressure and suction sides extending between leading and trailing edges. A cooling circuit is disposed inside the airfoil and extends from the tip cap to the root for circulating a coolant. The airfoil also includes a pair of squealer tips extending radially upwardly from the tip cap along the pressure and suction sides which are spaced apart from the leading to trailing edges to define an upwardly open tip cavity. A thermal conductor is fixedly joined to the squealer tips and extends radially inwardly to the tip cap for conducting heat thereto for removal by the coolant. The conductor preferably surrounds the tip cavity inboard of the squealer tips and is coextensive therewith for being protected thereby.

Conduction blade tip

In a gas turbine bucket having a shank portion, a radial tip portion and an airfoil having leading and trailing edges and pressure and suction surfaces, and an internal fluid cooling circuit, an improvement wherein the internal fluid cooling circuit has a serpentine configuration including plural radial outflow passages and plural radial inflow passages. The radial outflow passages, in one example, are shaped to have aspect ratios of about 3.3 to 1 and Buoyancy Numbers of &lt;0.15 or &gt;0.80. A method of determining a configuration for steam cooling passages for a bucket stage in a gas turbine is also provided which includes, in one example, the steps of:

Closed circuit steam cooled bucket

The bucket 10 of a gas turbine includes first and second steam supply passageways 32 and 34 for directing cooling steam radially outwardly along the bucket. Steam return passageways 40, 42 and 44 lie adjacent the trailing edge for returning cooling steam to its source. A shroud is disposed at the bucket tip and has cross-over passages communicating the supply steam from the first and second passageways to the fifth, third and fourth passageways, respectively.

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Scotia, NY, United States of America

Ariel C Jacala