General Electric Company

Omer D Erdmann

Harold Paul Rieck, Jr

Ralph A Kirkpatrick

Robert John Beacock

Robert Edward Athans

Kenneth Willgoose

An airfoil for use in a gas turbine engine. The airfoil includes a body having an interior surface defining a hollow cavity in the airfoil having an inlet and an outlet. The airfoil also includes a partition within the cavity dividing the cavity into a first cooling passage and a second cooling passage. The first cooling passage communicates with the inlet for delivering cooling air to the first passage and the second cooling passage communicates with the outlet for exhausting cooling air from the second passage. The partition has a cooling hole therein extending between the first passage and the second passage permitting cooling air to pass from the first passage to the second passage. The cooling hole is sized and positioned with respect to the interior surface of the airfoil for directing cooling air toward a portion of the interior surface of the airfoil so the cooling air impinges upon the portion. Thus, cooling air entering the inlet of the cavity travels through the first passage for cooling the body by convective heat transfer, through the cooling hole for impinging upon the portion of the interior surface of the body, through the second passage to cool the body by convective heat transfer, and out the outlet of the cavity.

Impigement cooled airfoil

A turbine for a gas turbine engine including a turbine nozzle assembly that facilitates reducing an operating temperature of rotor blades in a cost-effective and reliable manner is described. Each rotor blade includes a tip that rotates in close proximity to a shroud that extends circumferentially around the rotor assembly. The turbine nozzle assembly includes a plurality of turbine vane segments that channel combustion gases to downstream rotor blades. Each turbine vane segment extends radially outward from an inner platform and includes a tip, a root, and a body that extends therebetween. The turbine vane segment tip is formed integrally with an outer band that mounts the vane segments within the gas turbine engine. The outer band is in flow communication with a cooling fluid source, and includes at least one opening.

Methods and apparatus for cooling gas turbine engine blade tips

A method and apparatus for forming a hardened contact surface on a shroud of a turbomachinery blade comprising casting the blade and internal shroud with a metal insert into the casting mold so that the blade is cast with the insert in place. The insert may be formed with a projection extending from a wear surface of the shroud into the plane of the blade shroud such that the material from which the blade is made is cast about the projection to firmly and mechanically hold the insert in place. Each insert is preferably formed of a relatively low coefficient of friction and high wear resistant material whereby contact between abutting inserts on adjacent shroud surfaces have a high degree of slippage.

Shroud insert for turbomachinery blade

Disclosed is a vibration damped gas turbine engine airfoil row. The airfoil row, comprising first and second coaxial, circular spools and airfoils extending radially therebetween, is cast in at least one piece and then the second or inner spool is cut between adjacent airfoils. Damping inserts are held in place adjacent the inner surface of the second spool by a retaining means.

Damped gas turbine engine airfoil row

The present invention discloses a turbomachinery blading configuration. The configuration includes a circumferential recess in a blade support structure and a plurality of blades. Each blade has a platform for mounting the blade within the recess. Each platform includes oppositely directed, generally circumferentially facing edges, each edge having a first and second axial surfaces separated by a recess. The surfaces contact matching surfaces on adjacent blades thereby determining predictable load paths for tangential and twisting moment reaction forces acting on the blades.

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Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Omer D Erdmann