Turbine blade frequency tuned pin bank

Abstract

A gas turbine engine turbine blade includes a hollow airfoil extending radially from a blade root to a radially outer airfoil tip. The airfoil includes an airfoil outer wall having transversely spaced apart pressure and suction side walls meeting along chordally spaced apart leading and trailing edges of the airfoil. A radially extending cooling air supply channel within the airfoil includes a bank of pins integral with and extending transversely between the pressure and suction side walls. The bank of the pins is tuned such that a natural frequency of the blade associated with an engine forced driving mode of the blade is sufficiently away from a steady state engine operating frequency to substantially avoid natural frequency resonance of the blade during steady state engine operation. The bank of the pins is tuned by locations of the pins within the cooling air supply channel.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.