General Electric Company

Michael Leon Barron

Robert Paul Czachor

Thomas G Wakeman

Donald L Bellia

Robert J Hemmelgarn

James W Brantley

Eric E Baehre

Kenneth J Lenhart

Brian J Humke

Laura A Iyer

Sugato Bhattacharjee

A stiffener system includes a stiffener and a fastener means. The stiffener includes an extruded body that includes a plurality of projections. The stiffener couples to the apparatus to facilitate increasing a structural integrity of the apparatus. The fastener means secures the stiffener to the apparatus.

Method and apparatus for stiffening and apparatus

A flanged joint connection for connecting together by a bolted connection a pair of casing shells having connecting flanges. The connection reduces bearing stress concentrations adjacent fillets provided at the junction of the flange and the casing shell surface. A rectilinear edge portion is provided on a bolt head or a spacer, or both, to avoid point contact of the bolt head or spacer and the flange face or fillet. The rectilinear edge portion includes a convexly-curved surface that faces the fillet. The incidence of cracks between a bolt hole and the fillet, as well as the incidence of circumferential cracks between adjacent bolt holes is significantly reduced.

Reducing cracking adjacent shell flange connecting bolts

A casing for a gas turbine engine having a longitudinal axis extending therethrough, including a first casing portion having a substantially arcuate section and a split-line flange extending from each end thereof and a second casing portion having a substantially arcuate section and a split-line flange extending from each end thereof. The first and second casing portions are mated at each end by connecting together respective pairs of the split-line flanges. A channel is formed in at least one mating surface of the split-line flanges to provide an axial passage therethrough so that air flow provided to the axial passage reduces a temperature gradient between the arcuate sections and the flanges of the first and second casing portions. The gas turbine engine casing also includes a first radial channel formed in at least one mating surface of the split-line flanges to provide an entrance to the axial passage and a second radial channel formed in at least one mating surface of the split-line flanges to provide an exit to the axial passage so that flow communication is established between a flowpath through the casing and the axial passage.

Thermal control passages for horizontal split-line flanges of gas turbine engine casings

An improved containment structure for use with turbomachinery, such as turbofan engines. A casing is provided with at least one impact resistant section of a thickness sufficient to resist being pierced upon impact by a blade. The impact resistant section has a smoothly contoured thickness along its axial length and is free from features likely to cause a local failure in the event of impact by a blade released from a rotating disk.

Contoured hardwall containment

A turbine frame includes outer and inner coaxially disposed annular casings having a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart struts extending therebetween is provided with at least one and preferably two axially spaced apart polygonal stiffening rails, a forward rail and an aft rail, circumferentially disposed on the outer annular casing. The rails have at least a first section with a constant cross-sectional area normal to the casing in a circumferential direction around the outer casing, a linear centroid distribution of the cross-sections in the circumferential direction, and the centroids lie in a first plane P1 which is parallel to and spaced apart from a second plane P2 that is tangential to the outer casing mid-way between adjacent struts.

Turbine frame stiffening rails

A gas turbine engine thermal backbone deflection control apparatus to counter the effects of backbone bending due to nacelle aerodynamic, thrust, and maneuver loads by introducing a controlled backbone counter-bending moment by applying an uneven temperature or thermal field around the backbone to induce controlled compression and/or tensioning forces in the backbone or casing between axially spaced apart frames connected by the backbone. One embodiment of the invention provides for flowing thermal control air along an axially and circumferentially sector of the engine casing. The thermal backbone deflection control apparatus is controlled by the engines digital electronic control system using input signals generated by engine thrust load, inlet moment load sensors and/or blade tip clearance sensors.

Aircraft gas turbine engine backbone deflection thermal control

A structural frame component for use in a gas turbine engine includes an annular outer shell, an annular inner central hub, a plurality of circumferentially-spaced struts extending between the outer shell and central hub, each strut being attached at its inner end to the central hub, and a multi-yoke attachment between the outer ends of the struts and the outer shell. The multi-yoke attachment is composed of a plurality of yokes. Each yoke includes a clevis and a plurality of radially oriented fasteners and tangentially oriented fasteners respectively attaching the clevis between the outer shell and the outer end of a respective one strut.

Gas turbine engine structural frame with multi-yoke attachment of struts

A compressor discharge flowpath for a gas turbine engine includes flowpath outer and inner walls joined to a plurality of circumferentially spaced flowpath dividers extending therebetween. An inner support extends from the inner wall and is joined to a turbine nozzle, and an outer support extends from the outer wall and is joined to an engine casing. The outer support preferably includes a plurality of circumferentially spaced beams being sized and configured for carrying both axial force and torque transmitted therethrough from the turbine nozzle to the casing while allowing the beams to bend radially for accommodating differential thermal movement between the casing and the outer wall.

Growing community of inventors

Ten Mile, TN, United States of America

Michael Leon Barron