Hybrid electric fan with stall free low pressure compressor
AssigneeRaytheon Technologies Corporation
InventorsDaniel Bernard Kupratis, Christopher J. Hanlon, William G. Sheridan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A gas turbine engine according to an exemplary embodiment of this disclosure includes among other possible things, a fan section including a plurality of fan blades, a first electric motor assembly that provides a first drive input for driving the fan blades about an axis, a turbine section, and a geared architecture driven by the turbine section and coupled to the fan section to provide a second drive input for driving the fan blades, and second electric motor assembly is coupled to rotate the geared architecture relative to a fixed structure controls a speed of the fan blades provided by a combination of the first drive input and the second drive input.
Claims19
A gas turbine engine comprising:
- a fan section including a fan shaft and a plurality of fan blades;
- a propulsor electric motor assembly coupled to the fan shaft and configured to provide a first drive input for driving the fan blades about an axis;
- a turbine section;
- a geared architecture driven by the turbine section and coupled to the fan section to provide a second drive input for driving the fan blades about the axis, the geared architecture defining a speed reduction between a speed of the turbine section and the second drive input;
- and
- a geared architecture electric motor assembly coupled to a driven gear of the geared architecture and configured to rotate the geared architecture relative to a fixed structure to adjust the speed reduction and control a speed of the fan blades provided by a combination of the first drive input from the first electric motor and the second drive input from the turbine section, wherein the geared architecture electric motor assembly is configured to rotate the geared architecture in a first direction to increase the speed reduction and in a second direction to decrease the speed reduction.
A gas turbine engine comprising:
- a propulsor section including a plurality of fan blades and a propulsor electric motor assembly providing a first drive input for driving the plurality of fan blades;
- a turbine section;
- a geared architecture driven by the turbine section and coupled to the propulsor section to provide a second drive input for driving the fan blades;
- and
- a means for rotating the geared architecture relative to a fixed structure to control a speed of the fan blades provided by a combination of the first drive input and the second drive input.
A method of operating a gas turbine engine comprising:
- coupling a first electric motor assembly to a fan section providing a first drive input for driving the fan blades;
- coupling a geared architecture driven by a turbine section of the engine to the fan section for providing a second drive input to drive the fan blades;
- coupling a second electric motor assembly to rotate the geared architecture relative to a static engine structure;
- and
- controlling the first electric motor assembly and the second electric motor assembly to provide a combination of the first drive input and the second drive to rotate the fan blades at a predefined rotational speed.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.