General Electric Company

Don Butts

John G Nourse

Robert C Simmons

A gas turbine engine blade includes an airfoil having first and second sides and a dovetail extending from the airfoil root. The airfoil includes a tip having a tip floor with first and second tip walls extending from the floor and spaced apart to define therebetween a tip pienum. The first tip wall is recessed at least in part from the airfoil first side to define an outwardly facing tip shelf, with the tip shelf and the first tip wall defining therebetween a trough. A plurality of cooling holes extend through the tip floor at the tip shelf for channeling cooling air from a flow channel inside the airfoil into the trough for cooling the blade tip.

Tip cooled blade

An exemplary preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a gas turbine blade having an internal coolant passage therein of width D and a plurality of longitudinally spaced substantially straight turbulator ribs having a height E disposed substantially perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of the coolant passage. The ratio E/D is preferably within the range of about 0.07 and about 0.33 and the height E of the ribs being in the range of about 0.010 inches and about 0.025 inches. These features may be utilized in a relatively small blade, e.g., 1.0 inch, for obtaining enhanced cooling ability for operation in turbine gas temperatures greater than about 2,300 degrees F. without the need for conventional, relatively complex cooling structures required for larger blades.

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Swampscott, MA, United States of America

Don Butts