General Electric Company

Lucas Seth Wedmore

Christopher Paul Cox

Zachary James Taylor

Hiteshkumar Rameshchandra Mistry

The present application provides an inducer seal configured to provide a flow of air to a rotor shaft within a turbine of a gas turbine engine. The inducer seal includes a ring plate having an outer surface with a circumferential channel and an inner surface having an abradable seal. A number of inducer slots are positioned in the ring plate that extend from the outer surface to the inner surface such that the flow of air may pass therethrough in a tangential direction relative to rotation of the rotor shaft to cool the rotor shaft.

Inducer seal with integrated inducer slots

A rotor blade () for a turbine of a gas turbine that includes an airfoil (). The airfoil may have a leading edge, a trailing edge, an outboard tip, and an inboard end where the airfoil attaches to a root configured to couple the turbine blade to a rotor disc. The airfoil () may include a tip shroud () at an outboard tip. The rotor blade may have a cooling configuration that includes: elongated cooling channels () for receiving and directing a coolant through the airfoil (); and branching passages () formed through the tip shroud (), each of which elongates between a connection with one of the cooling channels () and an outlet port () formed on a surface of the tip shroud (). The branching passages () may have a canted orientation relative the outboard surface of the tip shroud ().

Growing community of inventors

Greenville, SC, United States of America

Lucas Seth Wedmore