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US 4,051,289 AGranted
Composite airfoil construction
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorArthur P. Adamson
Life of this patent
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AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorArthur P. Adamson
Estimating the term…
An article such as a blade fabricated from a plurality of high-strength, reinforcing filaments embedded in a matrix material and characterized by a portion of the filaments oriented transverse to the blade longitudinal axis in a direction through the blade to enhance transverse shear strength. In one embodiment, a plurality of columnar filament cores are each wrapped with a filament sheet and bonded together laterally to form the blade primary structure. The orientation of the filaments within the sheet forms an angle with the core longitudinal axes such that at least a portion of the sheet filaments runs transverse to the blade from one aerodynamic surface to the other. In an alternative embodiment, a blade is formed of a plurality of bonded filament laminates accordian folded with the fold lines angled with respect to the longitudinal axes of the filaments, the distance between fold lines being equal to or greater than the blade thickness.
A composite article having an upper surface and a lower surface and comprising a plurality of columnar elements bonded together along adjacent complementary interfaces, each of said element characterized by:
A composite article comprising a sheet of high modulus collimated filaments embedded in a matrix material wherein the sheet is accordian folded with the fold lines angled with respect to the longitudinal axes of the filaments, the distance between fold lines being substantially equal to the thickness of the article, and wherein at least a portion of the filaments are oriented through the thickness of the article.
A composite blade having an upper surface and a lower surface and comprising a plurality of columnar elements bonded together along adjacent complementary interfaces, each of said elements characterized by:
In a method of manufacturing a composite article, the step of accordian folding a sheet of high modulus collimated filaments embedded in a matrix, with the fold lines angled with respect to the longitudinal axes of the filaments and the distance between fold lines substantially equal to the thickness of the article.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.