Method of designing a turbine blade outer air seal

A method of creating a model of an outer air seal for a gas turbine engine, comprising the steps of:

• creating a knowledge base of information having a plurality of rules with respect to a corresponding plurality of parameters of associated elements of a segment of the outer air seal, wherein the knowledge base comprises at least one data value for each one of the plurality of rules;
• entering a desired data value for a selected one of the plurality of parameters of an associated element of the outer air seal segment;
• comparing the entered desired data value for the selected one of the plurality of parameters with the corresponding at least one data value in the knowledge base for the corresponding one of the plurality of rules;
• if the result of the step of comparing is such that the entered desired data value for the selected one of the plurality of parameters is determined to have a first predetermined relationship with respect to the corresponding at least one data value in the knowledge base for the selected one of the plurality of rules, then creating a geometric representation of the selected one of the plurality of parameters of the associated element of the outer air seal segment;
• and
• providing a file listing of a selected one or more of the plurality of parameters of the associated segment of the outer air seal, wherein the file listing includes at least one of the entered data values for each one of the corresponding plurality of parameters of the outer air seal segment, wherein the file listing represents a parametrical listing of each element of the model of the outer air seal segment.

A method of creating a model of an outer air seal for a gas turbine engine, comprising the steps of:

• creating a knowledge base of information having a plurality of rules with respect to a corresponding plurality of parameters of associated elements of a segment of the outer air seal, wherein the knowledge base comprises at least one data value for each one of the plurality of rules;
• entering a desired data value for a selected one of the plurality of parameters of an associated element of the outer air seal segment;
• comparing the entered desired data value for the selected one of the plurality of parameters with the corresponding at least one data value in the knowledge base for the corresponding one of the plurality of rules;
• if the result of the step of comparing is such that the entered desired data value for the selected one of the plurality of parameters is determined to have a first predetermined relationship with respect to the corresponding at least one data value in the knowledge base for the selected one of the plurality of rules, then creating a geometric representation of the selected one of the plurality of parameters of the associated element of the outer air seal segment;
• wherein the method further comprises the step of providing a file listing of a selected one or more of the plurality of parameters of the associated segment of the outer air seal, wherein the file listing includes at least one of the entered desired data values for each one of the corresponding plurality of parameters of the outer air seal segment, wherein the file listing represents a parametrical listing of each element of the model of the outer air seal segment;
• wherein the step of providing a file listing of a selected one or more of the plurality of parameters of the associated segment of the outer air seal further comprises the step of providing the file listing as an output from a knowledge-based engineering system;
• wherein the method further comprises the steps of:
• iteratively reading each one of the plurality of parameters from the file listing;
• and for each step of iteratively reading each one of the plurality of parameters from the file listing, updating a model of the outer air seal segment in a computer aided design system.