Aircraft gas turbine engine thrust mount

#1. Field of the Invention

#The present invention relates generally to aircraft mounted gas turbine engines, and, more specifically, to a thrust mount which substantially eliminates engine case deflection caused by engine backbone bending due to thrust loads.

#2. Description of Related Art

#The foregoing aspects and other features of the invention are explained in the following description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings where:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a typical gas turbine engine including an engine mount assembly in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention having an aft or rear thrust mount.

#FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional side view of the gas turbine engine and the engine mount assembly depicted in FIG. 1.

#Illustrated schematically in FIGS. 1 and 2 is a typical turbofan gas turbine engine 10 having a longitudinal centerline axis 12 and which is generally disposed within a nacelle 13 and mounted to a conventional wing 14 (shown in FIG. 2) of an aircraft by a conventional pylon 16. More specifically, the engine 10 includes a conventional fan section 18 including a conventional annular fan or forward frame 20 having a fan casing 22 conventionally fixedly joined in the engine 10. An engine structure 40 includes the fan frame 20 connected to a conventional aft or turbine rear frame 34 by a core engine casing 36. A pivotable engine support includes a forward vertical support mount 24 and an aft vertical support mount 32 to pivotably join and support the engine structure 40 to the pylon 16. The forward and aft vertical support mounts 24 and 32 respectively are each schematically illustrated as having two spherical bearing joints, an upper spherical bearing joint 37U and a lower spherical bearing joint 37L, which permit axial movement of the forward end of the engine 10 primarily to accommodate to thermal growth of the engine. The upper and lower spherical bearing joints 37U and 37L respectively are disposed at opposite ends of a forward mount link 63 and an aft mount link 64.

#The thrust mount assembly of the present invention includes an aft thrust mount 26 (also conventionally referred to as a mounting platform), in accordance with the exemplary embodiment of the present invention, and a pair of spaced apart thrust links 47 which extend between a hub 28 of the fan frame 20 and the pylon 16 for carrying thrust force generated by the engine 10 to the pylon 16. The thrust links 47 cooperate and perform as a single thrust bar (denoted as 46 in FIGS. 2-10) used to schematically illustrate the invention in FIGS. 2-10. The thrust mount 26 is referred to as an aft thrust mount because the thrust is taken off of the engine at an aft position on the engine such as the aft vertical mount plane P2. The present invention contemplates other embodiments having different relative positions such as about a forward or a mid-engine position. The thrust mount assembly preferably also includes the aft vertical support mount 32 which pivotably connects the turbine rear frame 34 of the engine structure 40 to the pylon 16. The aft vertical support mount 32 acts through an aft vertical mount plane P2 that is normal to and intersects the centerline axis 12 at a second axial position X2. The fan frame 20 and the turbine rear frame 34 are disposed coaxially about the centerline axis 12 and fixedly joined to forward and aft ends of an engine backbone in the form of the core engine casing 36 to form the rotor supporting engine structure 40.

#Referring more specifically to FIG. 2, the forward vertical support mount 24 acts through a forward vertical mount plane P1 that is normal to and intersects the centerline axis 12 at a first axial centerline position X1. Thrust mount assembly includes a four bar linkage 44 (which can also be a three bar linkage) having a thrust bar 46 (as the first bar) pivotably joined at a forward end 50 of the thrust bar to a forward axial position of the engine structure 40 at a forwardly located first pivotal joint 54. The thrust bar 46 is pivotably joined at an aft second end 51 of the thrust bar to the aft thrust mount 26 for the four bar linkage or directly to the aft vertical support 32 for a three bar linkage.