Aircraft engine and air-oil separator system therefore
AssigneePratt & Whitney Canada Corp.
InventorsRichard Kostka, David Menheere
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The aircraft engine can have an air-oil separator having an air-oil mixture inlet, an oil outlet, an air outlet, and a pressure relief path provided fluidly in parallel with the air-oil separator, between the air-oil mixture inlet and the air outlet, the pressure relief path can have a pressure relief valve for evacuating air-oil mixture to the exhaust duct in the event of excess pressure in the auxiliary gearbox.
Claims20
An aircraft engine comprising an air-oil separator having an air-oil mixture inlet, an oil outlet, an air outlet in fluid flow communication with an environment outside the aircraft engine, a primary air path extending from the air-oil mixture inlet to the air outlet, and a pressure relief path provided fluidly in parallel with the primary air path, the pressure relief path having a relief outlet in fluid flow communication with the environment, the pressure relief path having a pressure relief valve.
An air-oil separator for an aircraft engine, the air-oil separator having a rotary shaft configured to be assembled into an accessory gearbox, an annular housing concentric to a rotary shaft, the annular housing having a separator media therein, an air-oil mixture inlet leading into the annular housing, an oil outlet provided radially outwardly through the annular housing, an air outlet provided radially inwardly through the annular housing and leading into an axial conduit formed inside the shaft and leading outside of the accessory gearbox, a bypass conduit formed axially inside the shaft, provided in parallel with the air-oil separator, the bypass conduit communicating with the axial conduit via pressure relief valve.
A method of evacuating pressure from an accessory gearbox of a gas turbine engine, the method comprising, simultaneously and in parallel:
- conveying an air-oil mixture across a separator media of an air-oil separator, and outputting air from the air-oil mixture out from the accessory gearbox towards and environment outside the gas turbine engine;
- and
- conveying the air-oil mixture directly out from the accessory gearbox across a pressure relief valve, against a bias of the pressure relief valve and flowing the air-oil mixture towards the environment while bypassing the air-oil separator;
- until the pressure becomes weaker than the bias of the pressure relief valve.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.