Airfoil tip rail and method of cooling
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsZachary Daniel Webster, Tingfan Pang, Gregory Terrence Garay, Steven Robert Brassfield
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An airfoil for a turbine engine includes an outer wall bounding an interior and defining a pressure side and a suction side, the outer wall extending axially between a leading edge and a trailing edge to define a chord-wise direction, and also extending radially between a root and a tip to define a span-wise direction. At least one cooling conduit can be formed in the interior of the airfoil, and a tip rail can project from the tip in the span-wise direction.
Claims20
An airfoil for a turbine engine, comprising:
- an outer wall bounding an interior;
- at least one cooling conduit formed in the interior of the airfoil;
- a tip rail projecting from the outer wall;
- and
- a three-dimensional plexus of fluidly interconnected cooling passages provided at least partially within the tip rail, the three-dimensional plexus comprising:
- an impingement zone fluidly coupled to the at least one cooling conduit;
- a lattice portion located radially outward of the impingement zone and at least partially within the tip rail, with the lattice portion fluidly coupled to the impingement zone;
- and
- a set of elongated ejection holes fluidly coupling the lattice portion to at least one outlet on the tip rail.
An airfoil for a turbine engine, comprising:
- an outer wall bounding an interior;
- a tip rail projecting from the outer wall;
- a cooling conduit located within the interior;
- and
- a three-dimensional plexus of fluidly interconnected cooling passages located within the interior, the three-dimensional plexus comprising:
- an impingement zone fluidly coupled to the cooling conduit;
- a lattice portion fluidly serially coupled to the impingement zone, with the lattice portion located at least partially within the tip rail;
- and
- a set of elongated ejection holes serially extending from the lattice portion to at least one outlet on the tip rail.
A method of cooling a turbine engine airfoil having a tip rail, the method comprising:
- flowing cooling air through at least one cooling conduit within an interior of the turbine engine airfoil;
- flowing the cooling air from the at least one cooling conduit sequentially through an impingement zone, a lattice portion, and a set of elongated ejection holes;
- and
- ejecting the cooling air through a set of outlets on the tip rail.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.