Variable flowpath casings for blade tip clearance control
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsRaghuveer Chinta, Abhijit Roy, Vaishnav Raghuvaran, Srinivas Nuthi, Ravindra Shankar Ganiger
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are example variable flowpath casings for blade tip clearance control. An example casing for a turbine engine includes a first annular substrate extending along an axial direction; a second annular substrate positioned radially inward relative to the first annular substrate, the second annular substrate movably coupled to the first annular substrate; and an actuator coupled to the second annular substrate such that a force applied by the actuator moves the second annular substrate relative to the first annular substrate to adjust a tip clearance.
Claims20
A casing for a turbine engine, the casing comprising:
- a first annular substrate extending along an axial direction;
- a second annular substrate extending along the axial direction positioned inward relative to the first annular substrate and movable relative to the first annular substrate, wherein the second annular substrate includes an abradable layer;
- and
- an actuator coupled to the abradable layer such that a force applied by the actuator causes the abradable layer to move relative to the axial direction to adjust tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and the abradable layer.
An apparatus to control tip clearance of a turbine engine, comprising:
- interface circuitry;
- machine-readable instructions;
- and
- one or more processors to execute the machine-readable instructions to:
- monitor tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and an abradable layer of a first substrate, wherein the first substrate extends along an axial direction, is positioned inward relative to a second substrate, and is movable relative to the second substrate;
- and
- in response to a determination that the tip clearance is below a threshold value, apply a force via an actuator coupled to the abradable layer to cause the abradable layer of the first substrate to move relative to the axial direction, wherein the determination that the tip clearance is below the threshold value is based on the monitoring of the tip clearance.
A casing for a turbine engine, the casing comprising:
- a first substrate means, the first substrate means extending along an axial direction;
- a second substrate means, the second substrate means extending along the axial direction positioned inward relative to the first substrate means and movable relative to the first substrate means, wherein the second substrate means includes an abradable layer;
- and
- a means for actuating, the means for actuating coupled to the abradable layer such that a force applied by the means for actuating causes the abradable layer to move relative to the axial direction to adjust tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and the abradable layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.