Abstract: The present invention provides for the removable attachment of sealing segments about the entire circumferential periphery of the rotor spacer discs. To this end, the conventional annular grooves provided in the peripheral surface of each spacer disc (as part of the high/low sealing surface configuration) are reconfigured as dovetail grooves which are designed to receive complimentary or mating portions of the sealing segments. In other words, each adjacent annular groove receives a plurality of sealing segments, the totality of which substantially prevent or at least minimize the impingement of hot gases directly on the peripheral surface of the spacer disc.

Abstract: A gas turbine rotor assembly includes axially spaced rotor discs carried on a shaft, together with first and second generally cylindrical actuators mounted at each of their opposite ends to the shaft and extending toward one another to overlap at their distal ends. The actuators lie within the interior surface of the rotor discs and have openings in their overlapped portions. Upon a transient condition, the forward actuator thermally expands in an axial direction to register at least in part its openings with the openings of the second actuator to provide air flow through the partially aligned openings to opposite sides of an aft rotor disc. The second actuator thermally expands in a forward axial direction to increase the registration of the openings and, hence, the flow-through area, affording increased air flow.