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US 4,913,623 AGranted
Propeller/fan-pitch feathering apparatus
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsJan C. Schilling, Arthur P. Adamson, Julius Bathori, Neil Walker
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pitch feathering system for a gas turbine driven aircraft propeller having multiple variable pitch blades utilizes a counter-weight linked to the blades. The weight is constrained to move, when effecting a pitch change, only in a radial plane and about an axis which rotates about the propeller axis. The system includes a linkage allowing the weight to move through a larger angle than the associated pitch change of the blade.
Claims11
An aircraft propulsor system comprising:
- a gas turbine engine for generating a high energy gas stream;
- a propulsor stage coupled to said engine, said propulsor stage including first and second intermeshed counterrotating turbine blade sets driven by said gas stream and fore and aft multi-bladed propellers extending radially outward of said propulsor stage, each of said blade sets being operatively connected to corresponding ones of said fore and aft multi-blade propellers, one of said blade sets having radially inwardly extending blades and a radially outer blade support ring, the other of said blade sets having radially outwardly extending blades and a radially inner blade support ring and each of said propellers including a plurality of propeller blades;
- controlling means coupled to said propeller blades of said fore and aft propellers for controlling the pitch thereof;
- propeller blade pitch feathering means for automatically rotating said propeller blades to a predetermined pitch angle upon failure of said controlling means, said feathering means comprising:
- a unison ring interconnecting said blades of a corresponding one of said propellers for effecting conjoint pitch change of each of the blades;
- a plurality of counter-weights rotatably attached to said unison ring for rotation therewith about a rotational axis of said one of said propellers, each of said counter-weights being rotatable about an axis of rotation rotatable about said propeller rotational axis, and said counter-weights being rotatable only in a direction which effects radial displacement of said counter-weights with respect to said propeller axis;
- and
- means coupled to said counter-weights for driving said propeller blades to said predetermined pitch when said counter-weights rotate radially outward from said propeller axis.
5 more elements
An aircraft propeller blade pitch feathering system comprising:
- a propeller having a plurality of blades operatively connected for conjoint rotation about a propeller axis, each of said blades having a root portion and a foil portion and having a blade axis of rotation extending from said root portion through said foil portion;
- means interconnecting said root portion of each of said blades for effecting concurrent common angular rotation of each of said blades about its corresponding blade axis;
- a plurality of counter-weights rotatably connected to said interconnecting means for rotation therewith about said propeller axis, each of said counter-weights having an axis of rotation rotating about said propeller axis and lying on tangent lines of a circle circumscribing said propeller axis in a plane perpendicular thereto;
- each of said counter-weights being connected for rotation about a corresponding one of said counter-weight axes in a radial displacement motion with respect to said propeller axis;
- and
- means coupled to said counter-weights for driving each of said blades to a feather position when said counter-weights rotate radially outer of said propeller axis.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.