Systems and Methods for Facilitating Onboarding of Bucket Cooling Flows
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsKarthik Srinivasan, Vishal Rajpurohit, Sushilkumar Babu Mane
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Systems and methods Embodiments for facilitating onboarding of a cooling fluid are disclosed herein. According to one embodiment, a system may include a rotor assembly, a wheel space cavity adjacent to the rotor assembly, and a bucket shank cavity in fluid communication with the wheel space cavity. The system may also include at least one protrusion disposed on the rotor assembly in the wheel space cavity. The at least one protrusion may be configured to direct the cooling fluid radially from the wheel space cavity to the bucket shank cavity to minimize pressure loss in the cooling fluid.
Claims20
A turbine system for facilitating onboarding of a cooling fluid, comprising:
- a rotor assembly;
- a wheel space cavity adjacent to the rotor assembly;
- a bucket shank cavity in fluid communication with the wheel space cavity;
- and
- at least one protrusion disposed on the rotor assembly in the wheel space cavity, wherein the at least one protrusion is configured to direct the cooling fluid from the wheel space cavity to the bucket shank cavity to minimize pressure loss in the cooling fluid.
A turbine system for facilitating onboarding of a cooling fluid, comprising:
- a rotor assembly;
- a plurality of buckets attached to the rotor assembly, wherein each of the plurality of buckets comprises a bucket shank cavity therein;
- a wheel space cavity adjacent to the rotor assembly, wherein the bucket shank cavities are in fluid communication with the wheel space cavity;
- and
- a plurality of protrusions disposed on the rotor assembly in the wheel space cavity, wherein the plurality of protrusions are configured to direct the cooling fluid from the wheel space cavity to the bucket shank cavities to minimize pressure loss in the cooling fluid.
A method for facilitating onboarding of a cooling fluid to a bucket, comprising:
- positioning a bucket shank cavity in fluid communication with a wheel space cavity;
- positioning a plurality of protrusions on a rotor assembly in the wheel space cavity;
- and
- directing the cooling fluid from the wheel space cavity to the bucket shank cavity with the plurality of protrusions to minimize pressure loss in the cooling fluid.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.