Methods and apparatus to control a surface of an aircraft engine
AssigneesGeneral Electric Company, GE Avio S.r.l.
InventorsVincenzo Martina, Jeffrey D. Clements, Kevin Graziano, Arthur W. Sibbach
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus to control a surface of an aircraft engine are disclosed. An example system to control a surface in an aircraft engine comprises a first valve to vary a flow of cold fluid from a thermal transfer bus (TTB) to an active surface control (ASC) system based on an operating condition of the aircraft engine, the ASC system positioned adjacent to the surface, the first valve positioned upstream from the surface, and a second valve to vary a flow of hot fluid from the TTB to the ASC system based on the operating condition, the second valve positioned downstream from the surface.
Claims19
An apparatus to control a surface in an aircraft engine, the apparatus comprising:
- interface circuitry;
- machine readable instructions;
- and
- programmable circuitry to at least one of instantiate or execute the machine readable instructions to:
- identify an operating condition of the aircraft engine;
- in response to the operating condition corresponding to a first operating condition, configure a first valve to direct a flow of cold fluid from a thermal transfer bus (TTB) to an active surface control (ASC) system to cause the surface to contract;
- and
- in response to the operating condition corresponding to a second operating condition different than the first operating condition, configure a second valve to direct a flow of hot fluid from the TTB to the ASC system to cause the surface to expand.
A non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising instructions to cause programmable circuitry to at least:
- in response to an operating condition of an aircraft engine corresponding to a first operating condition, configure a first valve to direct a flow of cold fluid from a thermal transfer bus (TTB) to an active surface control (ASC) system to cause a surface of the aircraft engine to contract;
- and
- in response to the operating condition corresponding to a second operating condition different than the first operating condition, configure a second valve to direct a flow of hot fluid from the TTB to the ASC system to cause the surface to expand.
A method to control a surface in an aircraft engine, the method comprising:
- identifying an operating condition of the aircraft engine;
- and
- in response to the operating condition corresponding to a first operating condition, configuring a first valve to direct a flow of hot fluid from a thermal transfer bus (TTB) to an active surface control (ASC) system to cause the surface to expand, wherein the hot fluid is hotter than the surface to enable the hot fluid to cause the surface to expand;
- and
- in response to the operating condition corresponding to a second operating condition different than the first operating condition, configuring a second valve to direct a flow of cold fluid from the TTB to the ASC system to cause the surface to contract.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.