Cooled Turbine Airfoil Fabricated From Sheet Material

Abstract

A turbine airfoil (20) fabricated as an assembly of U-channels (22A-E), each U-channel having a closed side formed by a cross wall (25), an open side (26) opposite the cross wall, and two side walls (27) extending from the cross wall to the open side. The U-channels are attached to each other in a parallel, closed-side to open-side sequence, forming a series of cooling channels (23) oriented span-wise (S) in the airfoil. A first of the U-channels (22A) has a curved cross wall forming the leading edge (24) of the airfoil. A last of the U-channels (22E) may have side walls (27) that converge to form a trailing edge (28) of the airfoil. Alternately, a solid trailing edge (22E′) may be attached to a last of the U-channels. Each U-channel may be bonded to an adjacent U-channel using half-lap joints (30).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.