General Electric Company

Carl C Koch

Jan Christopher Schilling

David William Crall

Aspi Rustom Wadia

Ian Francis Prentice

James W Tucker

Onofre T Castells

David C Prince, Jr

A gas turbine engine fan blade includes a main body having a radially spaced apart root and tip, and axially spaced apart leading and trailing edges. A front shell is fixedly joined to a portion of the body leading edge to collectively define with the body an airfoil having first and second opposite sides extending between the root, tip, shell, and trailing edge for pressurizing air flowing thereover. The shell is hollow to offset toward the trailing edge a collective center of gravity of the airfoil to reduce steady stress at the airfoil leading edge.

Forward swept fan blade

A method and apparatus provide cooling air from a compressor to hot components in a gas turbine engine. Compressed air discharged from an exit of the compressor is stratified into a main flow channeled to a combustor, and a separate bleed flow channeled to a heat exchanger. The bleed flow has an above average pressure whereas the main flow has a below average pressure. The bleed flow is cooled in the heat exchanger and channeled to hot components of the engine for cooling thereof.

Method and apparatus for turbine cooling

A containment system for wide chord turbofan fan blades, the system having a containment housing which forms a nesting area to accommodate broken blades and blade parts. Connected to the containment housing and constituting a part of the nesting area are structural rings which are positioned so that centrifugal forces will direct the larger blade fragments to impact upon the structural rings causing the large blade fragments to break into smaller fragments which are then easily housed in the nesting area, thus reducing the required area of the nesting area and minimizing the weight of the containment system.

Structural ring mechanism for containment housing of turbofan

A turbomachine such as a compressor having one or more rows of blades designed to operate at a supersonic inlet relative Mach number is provided with a manifold surrounding the blade tips for extracting air from the passages between adjacent blades by an amount generally inversely related to the inlet relative Mach number, thereby restructuring the shock pattern. Extraction rate is modulated by a valve operatively connected to the turbomachine fuel control system.

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Carl C Koch