General Electric Company

Rakshit Tirumala

Bhaskar Nanda Mondal

Vaibhav M Deshmukh

Sushilkumar Shevakari

Arthur William Sibbach

Jeffrey Douglas Rambo

Jeffrey Donald Clements

Vaishnav Raghuvaran

A turbine engine for an aircraft including a turbo-engine, a fan having a fan shaft coupled to the turbo-engine, and a steam system. The steam system is fluidly coupled to a core air flow path at a plurality of steam injection locations to selectively inject steam into the core air flow path at each of the plurality of steam injection locations, using a steam flow control valve. The plurality of steam injection locations include (i) an upstream steam injection location located to inject steam into the core air flow path at a primary combustion zone of a combustor or upstream thereof and (ii) a downstream steam injection location located to inject steam into the core air flow path downstream of the primary combustion zone.

Turbine engine including a steam system

A turbine engine includes a spool with a compressor for providing a compressed air flow to a turbine, a shaft that connects the compressor and a turbine such that the compressor and the turbine rotate together, and a fuel supply. A combustor located downstream of the compressor receives and combusts the compressed air flow and the fuel supply, generating combustion gases. The combustion gases rotate the turbine, in turn rotating the spool. A balance piston for applying an axial force on the spool includes a rotating boundary portion and a fixed enclosure portion that does not rotate, defining a balance piston cavity. A water system provides water to the balance piston cavity, heat transfer from the balance piston to the water causes expansion of the water, the water in the balance piston cavity being balance piston fluid that is pressurized and applies an axial force to the spool.

Turbine engine including a water system

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Rakshit Tirumala