General Electric Company

Peter David Toot

Ronghai Qu

Wei Wu

John Michael Kern

Kiyoung Chung

Daniel Alan Niergarth

Manoj Ramprasad Shah

Christopher Charles Glynn

Jan Christopher Schilling

Craig Douglas Young

Gert Johannes Van Der Merwe

Michal-Wolfgang Waszak

Juan M De Bedout

Douglas George Shafer

Tom Compton

A gas turbine engine includes a compressor section and a turbine section. A first spool is rotatable with a first turbine of the turbine section and a first compressor of the compressor section. Additionally, a second spool is rotatable with a second turbine of the turbine section and a second compressor of the compressor section. An electric machine is positioned at least partially inward of the core air flowpath of the gas turbine engine along a radial direction of the gas turbine engine. Additionally, the exemplary gas turbine engine includes a gear assembly mechanically coupled to both the first spool and the second spool, such that the first and second spools may each drive the electric machine.

Embedded electric machine

A brushless starter/generator includes a rotor rotatably mounted within a stator mounted within a housing and an oil cooling system using cooling oil from an engine accessory gearbox for cooling the rotor and the stator. The rotor is fixedly mounted on a rotor shaft having a rotor heat exchanger disposed therein. A stator heat exchanger for cooling the stator includes an oil jacket around the housing. The stator heat exchanger includes a grooved tube around the housing and axially extending axial passages connected to annular inlet and outlet manifolds in the grooved tube. The rotor shaft is operably connected to a power take-off shaft within the gearbox and rotatably supported by a shaft bearing in a gearbox casing of the accessory gearbox. The oil cooling system is a dry cavity oil cooling system which prevents cooling oil from entering an air gap between the rotor and the stator.

Integrated brushless starter/generator system

An aircraft gas turbine engine includes a counter-rotatable generator driven by a turbine includes a generator stator and counter-rotatable radially inner pole and outer magnet rotors. A gearbox may be used for counter-rotating the pole and magnet rotors. Counter-rotatable first and second sets of booster stages may be co-rotatable with corresponding ones of the pole and magnet rotors. The generator and the gearbox may be disposed within a booster cavity or a tail cone of the engine. The magnet rotor, the pole rotor, and the stator may be concentric. A particular embodiment of generator includes the magnet rotor encircling the pole rotor, the pole rotor encircling the stator, a rotor air gap between the magnet and pole rotors, and a transformer air gap between the pole rotor and the stator. The counter-rotatable generator may be driven directly by a counter-rotatable turbine.

Aircraft gas turbine engine counter-rotatable generator

A counter-rotatable generator includes a generator stator concentric with concentric counter-rotatable radially inner pole and outer magnet rotors. The magnet rotor encircles the pole rotor and the pole rotor encircles the generator stator. A rotor air gap is disposed between the magnet and pole rotors, and a transformer air gap is disposed between the pole rotor and the stator. The magnet rotor includes a circular array of magnets having circumferentially alternating north/south and south/north orientations, retained within a magnet retention ring, and the magnets are circumferentially separated from each other by non-magnetic material spacers. One stator includes an annular hub, axial windings around equi-distantly spaced axial poles on the annular hub, radial cores extending radially outwardly from and equi-angularly spaced about a pole hub on the annular hub between the first and second axial windings, and radial windings around the radial cores.

Counter-rotatable generator

A system for transferring torque between a pair of independently, concurrently rotating shafts of a turbofan engine includes a magnetic gearbox. The magnetic gearbox has a first ring structure, a second ring structure and an intermediate ring structure. Each ring structure has an annular aperture therethrough and a plurality of permanent magnets embedded therein. The intermediate ring structure is disposed between the first and the second ring structures. Each ring structure is coaxially concentric with, and independently rotatable with respect to the remaining ring structures. The first and second ring structures are each coupled to separate ones of the rotating engine shafts, and the intermediate ring is operable to transfer torque between the pair of shafts. Preferably, the intermediate ring structure is coupled to a rotating machine. The rotating machine has a controller, and is operable for adjusting a ratio of torque transferred between the pair of shafts.

Variable magnetic coupling of rotating machinery

An inside out generator disposed aft of the low-pressure turbine spool to generate power for the electrical demands of an aircraft system. The low-pressure turbine discharge flow is used to drive the power turbine, which is coupled to the generator. The generator is able to extract power at idle conditions of the aircraft engine from ducting the discharge through the inside out generator. The system eliminates the placement of a generator in the hot gas path of the discharge, and enables the injection of power directly to the accessory gear box of the engine.

Electric power generation using power turbine aft of LPT

A fail-fixed servovalve is provided for use in a digital control system. The servovalve is comprised of a deflecting means which deflects a jet pipe in response to an electrical input signal. Fluid flowing through the jet pipe causes a spool to translate within a sleeve, thereby allowing pressurized fluid to flow through selected ports within the sleeve to control the movement of an output piston. The output of the servovalve is essentially linear over the primary range of digital input currents with the output being zero when the input current is either zero or in excess of the maximum rated current for the servovalve.

Fail-fixed servovalve

A turbine is stabilized in high speed, high altitude flight conditions by reducing the maximum augmenter fuel/air ratio in response to certain pressure and temperature conditions. Temperatures and pressures indicative of those at the combustor are sensed and the augmenter fuel schedule is accordingly modified to a level which provides reduced fuel/air ratios and stable burning conditions.

Growing community of inventors

Cincinnati, OH, United States of America

Peter David Toot