High efficiency turbomachinery blade

A turbomachinery blade for use in a blade array, the blade comprising an airfoil having a root, a tip spanwisely spaced from the root, a suction surface and a pressure surface laterally spaced from the suction surface, the suction and pressure surfaces being joined together at a leading edge and at a trailing edge chordwisely spaced from the leading edge, the suction surface having chordwisely separated, convex forward and aft segments and a concave medial segment chordwisely intermediate the forward and aft segments.

A turbomachinery blade for use in a blade array, the blade comprising an airfoil having a root, a tip spanwisely spaced from the root, a suction surface and a pressure surface laterally spaced from the suction surface, the suction and pressure surfaces being joined together at a leading edge and at a trailing edge chordwisely spaced from the leading edge, at least part of the suction surface being representable as a continuous curve in the positive quadrant of a planar Cartesian coordinate system having abscissa and ordinate axes, the curve having a continuous first derivative and a second derivative and being oriented so that each point on the curve has a single ordinate value uniquely associated with each abscissa value and so that the values along the abscissa axis correspond to the chord of the airfoil and so that the first derivative at the ordinate axis is zero, the suction surface characterized in that the second derivative changes sign at least twice over a range of spanwise locations.

A turbomachinery blade array having a plurality of blades each comprising an airfoil having a root, a tip spanwisely spaced from the root, a suction surface and a pressure surface laterally spaced from the suction surface, the suction and pressure surfaces being joined together at a leading edge and at a trailing edge chordwisely spaced from the leading edge, the blades defining a plurality of interblade passages each bounded in part by the pressure surface of one of the blades and by the suction surface of a neighboring blade for guiding a stream of working medium fluid through the blade array, each passage also having a throat that extends across the passages, the suction surface of at least a subset of the blades having chordwisely separated, positively curved forward and aft segments and a negatively curved medial segment chordwisely intermediate the forward and aft segments, the medial segment being approximately chordwisely aligned with the throat.

A turbomachinery blade array having a plurality of blades each comprising an airfoil having a root, a tip spanwisely spaced from the root, a suction surface and a pressure surface laterally spaced from the suction surface, the suction and pressure surfaces being joined together at a leading edge and at a trailing edge chordwisely spaced from the leading edge, the blades defining a plurality of interblade passages each bounded in part by the pressure surface of one of the blades and by the suction surface of a neighboring blade for guiding a stream of working medium fluid through the blade array, the fluid stream within at least a subset of the passages having a chordwisely localized region of expansion extending across the passage, the expansion region being associated with fluid turning at the trailing edge of one of the blades and having a first end adjacent the trailing edge of the one blade and a second end adjacent the suction surface of the neighboring blade, the suction surfaces that bound at least some of the subset of passages having chordwisely separated, positively curved forward and aft segments and a negatively curved medial segment chordwisely intermediate the forward and aft segments, the medial segment being substantially chordwisely aligned with the second end of the expansion region.

A turbomachinery blade for use in a blade array, the blade comprising an airfoil having a root, a tip spanwisely spaced from the root, a suction surface and a pressure surface laterally spaced from the suction surface, the suction and pressure surfaces being joined together at a leading edge and at a trailing edge chordwisely spaced from the leading edge, the suction surface having a chordwisely localized depression.