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US 8,554,433 B2Granted
Apparatus for driving shaft rotation and method
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorsSreedhar Desabhatla, Girish Kamavarapu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus for driving shaft rotation is provided and includes a shaft, which is rotatable about an axis thereof, a machine operably coupled to the shaft to be rotatable with the shaft and configured to be responsive to a load applied thereto and a driving element, which is configured to engage with the shaft at a first predefined speed and a second speed greater than the first predefined speed to drive shaft rotation.
Claims20
An apparatus, comprising:
- a shaft, which is rotatable about an axis thereof;
- a machine operably coupled to the shaft to be rotatable with the shaft and configured to be responsive to a load applied thereto;
- a driving element, which is configured to engage with the shaft at a first predefined speed of the shaft rotation and at a second speed of the shaft rotation, which is greater than the first predefined speed and associated with a high-speed restart of the machine, to drive shaft rotation,
- the driving element being controlled to engage with the shaft at the second speed in accordance with:
- a current rotational speed of the shaft, which is identified by an incremental application of about 2 to about 5% of synchronous motor amps field no load value, and
- a drive schedule based on excitation trend data that defines an excitation signal for the current rotational speed of the shaft.
3 more elements
An apparatus, comprising:
- a shaft, which is rotatable about an axis thereof;
- a machine which is configured as a component of a gas turbine engine and which is operably coupled to the shaft to be rotatable with the shaft and configured to be responsive to a load applied thereto;
- a driving element, which is configured to engage with the shaft at a first predefined speed of shaft rotation and at a second speed of shaft rotation, which is associated with a high-speed restart of the machine and is greater than the first predefined speed, to drive shaft rotation;
- and
- a controller operably coupled to the driving element to control the driving element to engage with the shaft at the second speed in accordance with:
- a current rotational speed of the shaft, which is identified by an incremental application of about 2 to about 5% of synchronous motor amps field no load value, and
- a drive schedule based on excitation trend data that defines an excitation signal for the current rotational speed of the shaft.
4 more elements
A non-transitory computer implemented method for driving shaft rotation, comprising:
- storing excitation data relating to the driving of a rotation of a shaft, which is rotatable about an axis thereof and coupled to a component of a gas turbine engine that is responsive to a load applied thereto;
- identifying a current speed of the rotation of the shaft by an incremental application of about 2 to about 5% of synchronous motor amps field no load value;
- determining a drive schedule defining an excitation signal from the excitation data and the current speed;
- and
- applying the excitation signal to a driving element to thereby control the driving element to engage with the shaft at a first predefined speed of shaft rotation, which is equal to or lower than a rated base speed or a rated turning gear speed of the driving element, and to engage with the shaft at a second speed associated with a high-speed restart greater than the rated base speed or the rated turning gear speed.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.