Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Rolls-Royce Corporation

Bae Systems, Inc.

Gary D Lock

Ching-Pang Lee

Kok-Mun Tham

Vincent Paul Laurello

Clyde Warsop

Martin L G Oldfield

Carl M Sangan

John M Owen

James Henderson

Mike Woods

A seal assembly provided between a hot gas path and a disc cavity in a turbine engine includes an annular outer wing member extending from an axially facing side of a rotor structure toward an adjacent non-rotating vane assembly, and a plurality of fins extending radially inwardly from the outer wing member and extending toward the adjacent non-rotating vane assembly. The fins are arranged such that a space having a component in a circumferential direction is defined between adjacent fins. Rotation of the fins during operation of the engine effects a pumping of purge air from the disc cavity toward the hot gas path to assist in limiting hot working gas leakage from the hot gas path to the disc cavity by forcing the hot working gas away from the seal assembly.

Finned seal assembly for gas turbine engines

A ring-wing aircraft suited particularly, although not exclusively, to use in micro-unmanned air vehicles (UAV's) with ring-wings. An aircraft ( ) according to the invention comprises a ring-wing ( ) defining a duct ( ) with a longitudinally-extending central axis ( ), propulsion element ( ) located within the duct and moveable aerofoils ( ) for controlling the aircraft in flight, the ring-wing being truncated obliquely at one end, that end being the rear ( ) when in horizontal flight, to form a ring-wing with opposed sides of unequal length. This arrangement produces center of mass offset from the central axis of the ring-wing, the pendulum effect will ensure that the aircraft will roll so that its center of mass will always be at the lowest height possible when the aircraft is airborne. Therefore the aircraft has a preferred orientation, and the control surfaces can be oriented with respect to this preferred orientation. In addition, the oblique truncation at the rear keeps the center of mass towards the front of the aircraft thereby giving improved stability in all three axes.

Ring-wing aircraft

A gas turbine engine component, typically either a turbine blade or vane or combustor, comprising a wall (,) with a first surface (,) which is adapted to be supplied with a flow of cooling air, and a second surface (,) which is adapted to be exposed to a hot gas stream (,). The wall (,) further having defined therein a plurality of passages (,), the passages (,) defined by passage walls (,), which interconnect a passage inlet (,) in said first surface (,) to a passage outlet (,) in said the second surface (,). The passages (,), cooling air and the hot gas stream (,) arranged such that in operation a flow (,) of cooling air is directed through said passages (,) to provide a flow (,) of cooling air over at least a portion of the second surface (,). The cross sectional area of each of the passages (,) progressively decreasing overall, in the direction of cooling air flow (,) through the passage (,), such that in use the flow of cooling air (,) through the passage (,) is accelerated. The passage walls (,) of the cooling passages (,) preferably diverging laterally across the wall (,) of the component whilst perpendicular to the wall (,) they converge so that overall the cross-sectional area decreases.

Coolant passages for gas turbine components

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Bath, United Kingdom

Gary D Lock