General Electric Company

Henry B Stueber

Eric E Baehre

Christopher Charles Glynn

Richard William Albrecht, Jr

Robert J Hemmelgarn

A stator seal assembly for a gas turbine engine of a type having a high pressure compressor section and a high pressure turbine section, the stator seal having a seal segment extending between a stator vane support structure and disk seal teeth, the stator seal segment having an arm for forming a cavity, a retaining segment attached to the seal segment and the arm for sealing the cavity to form a dead air space, a control ring located in the cavity having a coefficient of thermal expansion lower than a coefficient of thermal expansion for the seal segment, and a honeycomb pad located between the arm and the seal teeth, whereby thermal expansion clearance between the stator vane and the rotor disk is minimized.

Stator seal assembly providing improved clearance control

A compressor outlet guide vane (OGV) assembly includes inner and outer annular OGV walls, having outlet guide vanes mounted therebetween, are in abutting relationship with the corresponding leading edges of respective inner and outer diffuser casings and not welded to or otherwise supported by the leading edges of the diffuser casings as in the prior art. The OGV assembly is attached to an annular OGV support member that extends from a portion of a corresponding OGV wall circumscribing the thick section of the OGVs. This assembly decouples the inner and outer OGV annular walls from moments or thermally induced radial loads that may be transferred to the OGV walls due to the interface of the diffuser casings and OGV walls and which may in turn induce failure causing stresses in the OGV trailing edges. One particular embodiment provides an inner conical OGV support member mounted to the inner annular OGV wall at its forward end and bolted, at its aft end, to the inner diffuser support member, which is typically cast integral with the diffuser, and with the inner turbine support member. Another embodiment provides inner and outer conical OGV support members engaging radially extending flange like extensions of corresponding inner and outer diffuser casings.

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Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Henry B Stueber