Turbofan engine front section
AssigneeUnited Technologies Corporation
InventorsFrederick M. Schwarz, William G. Sheridan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A turbofan engine includes a geared architecture for driving a fan about an axis. The geared architecture includes a sun gear rotatable about an axis, a plurality of planet gears driven by the sun gear and a ring gear circumscribing the plurality of planet gears. A carrier supports the plurality of planet gears. The geared architecture includes a power transfer parameter (PTP) defined as power transferred through the geared architecture divided by gear volume multiplied by a gear reduction ratio and is between about 430 and 645.
Claims26
A turbofan engine comprising:
- a fan section including a fan hub including a hub diameter supporting a plurality of fan blades including a tip diameter with a ratio of the hub diameter to the tip diameter is between about 0.24 and about 0.36;
- a compressor section;
- a combustor receiving airflow from the compressor section and generating a high-energy flow;
- a turbine section driven by the high-energy flow;
- and
- a geared architecture driven by the turbine section for rotating the fan hub at a speed different than the turbine section, the geared architecture including a gear volume between about 1318 in3 and about 1977 in3.
A front section of a turbofan engine comprising:
- a fan section including a fan hub including a hub diameter supporting a plurality of fan blades including a tip diameter with a ratio of the hub diameter to the tip diameter is between about 0.24 and about 0.36;
- a geared architecture driven by a turbine section for rotating the fan about the axis;
- and
- a compressor entrance passage disposed around the geared architecture including an inlet disposed at an inlet diameter and an outlet disposed at an outlet diameter, wherein a ratio of the inlet diameter to the outlet diameter is between about 1.10 and about 1.64.
A geared architecture for a turbofan engine comprising:
- a sun gear rotatable about an axis;
- a plurality of planet gears driven by the sun gear;
- a ring gear circumscribing the plurality of planet gears;
- and
- a carrier supporting the plurality of planet gears, wherein a geared architecture power transfer parameter (PTP) is defined as power transferred through the geared architecture divided by gear volume multiplied by a gear reduction ratio and is between about 430 and 645.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.