Foreign object damage resistant composite blade and manufacture
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsCharles R. Evans, Barrett J. Fuhrman, Jackie D. Jones, Richard A. Ridilla
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention provides a composite airfoil particularly useful as a fan blade, having a high degree of twist, in a large high bypass ratio turbofan engine. The composite airfoil of the present invention has a progression of filament reinforced airfoil laminations of varying span, arranged in order by span, and interrupted by at least one filament reinforced airfoil lamination having a span out of height order to form what is called a confused or broken shear plane where radially outer tips of the laminations end.
Claims14
A polymer matrix composite blade comprising:
- an airfoil having concave and convex sections disposed on opposite sides of a centerplane of the composite blade,
- said concave and convex sections each comprising at least one concave and one convex progression respectively of groups of filament reinforced airfoil laminations, each group comprising at least two filament reinforced airfoil laminations,
- all of said laminations in each group having substantially equal spans,
- said groups of filament reinforced airfoil laminations being of varying span,
- said progressions arranged in order by span from shortest to longest starting essentially from said centerplane outward, and
- a central group comprising at least one relatively long filament reinforced airfoil lamination disposed essentially at said centerplane and having a span intermediate in length between the shortest and the longest laminations of said progression and longer than the laminations adjacent to said central group so that a shear plane is not created.
A polymer matrix composite blade comprising:
- an airfoil having concave and convex sections disposed on opposite sides of a centerplane of the composite blade,
- said concave and convex sections each having an arrangement of groups of filament reinforced airfoil laminations wherein said groups are grouped from at least one concave and one convex progression respectively of said filament reinforced airfoil laminations, each group comprising at least two filament reinforced airfoil laminations,
- said progressions are derived from a preform shape arranged in order by span height from shortest to longest starting essentially from a point corresponding to said centerplane outward,
- each of said groups having an average height that is unequal to the average span height of adjacent groups within its corresponding one of said concave and convex sections, and
- a first group in at least one of said convex and concave sections, wherein said first group has an average span height equal to at least a longest one of said average span heights wherein said first group is disposed essentially adjacent said centerplane so that a shear plane is not created.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.