Integral turbine nozzle support and discourager seal

A turbine nozzle and nozzle support assembly for a gas turbine engine comprising:

• a turbine nozzle segment with a mounting flange extending radially inwardly, said mounting flange including a hole for receiving a mounting pin;
• an inner nozzle support comprising:
• a generally conical section having a longitudinal axis with an inner surface and an outer surface, the circumference of said surfaces radially increasing longitudinally from a first, forward, end to a second, aft, end;
• a first flange extending circumferentially and radially inward from said conical section first end and including means for mounting said support to an engine structure;
• a second flange extending circumferentially and radially outward to an outer circumference from said conical section second end, said second flange including seal segment mounting means comprising a U-shaped circumferential groove facing radially outward for receiving said turbine nozzle segment mounting flange and at least one longitudinally extending hole for receiving said mounting pin to engage said nozzle mounting flange within said U-shaped circumferential groove;
• a longitudinally extending, metallic, annular discourager seal with an inner annular surface and an outer annular surface extending aft from said second flange radially outer circumference, said discourager seal comprising the same material as the second flange and acting as a substrate to a thermal barrier coating applied to said outer annular surface of said discourager seal and not applied to said inner annular surface;
• wherein during engine operation said generally conical section has a surface exposed to cooling air and wherein the radially outer annular surface of said discourager seal is exposed to high temperature gases in a buffer cavity, and wherein during transient operation said thermal barrier coating acts to slow the thermal flux to the substrate seal material to cause the thermal response of said longitudinally extending annular discourager seal to more closely correspond to the thermal response of said generally conical section.

A high pressure turbine nozzle support for a gas turbine engine comprising:

• a support section to be exposed to a first thermal environment;
• said support section integral with a discourager seal section to be exposed to a second thermal environment removed from the hot core flow path;
• said support section and said discourager seal section forming one circumferentially continuous support with no axially extending splits in the discourager seal surface;
• wherein said discourager seal section includes a radially outer surface comprising a thermal barrier coating over a metallic substrate and a radially inner surface not including a thermal barrier coating;
• wherein the discourager seal substrate comprises the same material as the support section;
• whereby during transient engine operation said thermal barrier coating causes a thermal response of said discourager seal section to closely correspond to a thermal response of said support section.