Attachment air inlet configuration for highly loaded single crystal turbine blades
AssigneeUnited Technologies Corporation
InventorRobert J. Kildea
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to an improved attachment air inlet configuration for a turbine blade. It defines several modifications that reduce attachment rib concentrated stresses in highly loaded, single crystal turbine blades that cause cracking in conventional blade inlet configurations. It desensitizes rib concentrated stresses to variations in secondary crystal orientation, permitting highly loaded single crystal blades to have random secondary crystal orientation for lower cost, or seed with any secondary orientation needed to solve other blade or manufacturing problems.
Claims11
An attachment air inlet configuration for a turbine blade comprising:
- an attachment having a root portion with a center plane;
- a plurality of inlets in said root portion of said attachment communicating with at least two flow passageways in said blade;
- each of said inlets having a non-circular shape with a major axis;
- and
- said major axis being substantially normal to said root portion center plane.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.