Methods for aligning holes through wheels and spacers and stacking the wheels and spacers to form a turbine rotor

Abstract

A method of stacking a plurality of wheels and spacers forming a rotor for a turbine, the wheels and spacers having a plurality of circumferentially spaced, axially extending openings spaced radially from axes of the wheels and spacers including providing a support fixture having an axis and disposing a plurality of alignment rods about the fixture in circumferentially spaced relation to one another about and generally parallel to the axis. Each of the rods has a cross-section with a radial dimension less than a circumferential dimension. The method includes disposing the wheels and spacers on the support fixture with the alignment rods extending through the openings with clearances between the rods and margins of the openings being greater in a radial direction than in a circumferential direction.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.