Interrelated Reaction Motors Patents (Class 60/224)
  • Patent number: 4224790
    Abstract: An engine particularly adapted to travel at high supersonic and hypersonic velocities. The engine has a forward turbine positioned at the engine inlet and a rearwardly positioned compressor driven by the turbine through an interconnecting longitudinal shaft. In a first embodiment, a cryogenic fuel, such as hydrogen, is introduced into the engine at a location between the turbine and the compressor, with vaporization and heating of the fuel causing a reduction in the compressor inlet temperature and a consequent increase in compressor discharge for a given turbine power shaft input. The resulting fuel/air mixture passes through the compressor and then into a rearwardly positioned combustion chamber where it is ignited, with the combustion products then being expanded from the compressor discharge pressure to atmospheric pressure through an outlet nozzle as jet exhaust.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 1977
    Date of Patent: September 30, 1980
    Inventor: Raymond G. Christensen
  • Patent number: 4185460
    Abstract: An aircraft having two turbine engines is provided with both torque and temperature sensitive electronic circuitry to control the fuel supplied to the turbine engines. Pushbutton switches are provided for the selection of the desired torque level by the pilot. The fuel to either engine is reduced, regardless of output torque and its relationship to the pushbutton values of selected torque, when the engine temperature exceeds a predetermined safety level. Failsafe operation is provided through the use of a main fuel supply path including a manual fuel control valve extending from the fuel pump to the engine fuel nozzles, and a normally closed bypass fuel control line which selectively diverts fuel from the principal path under the control of the temperature and torque responsive electronic circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 27, 1977
    Date of Patent: January 29, 1980
    Assignee: Semco Instruments, Inc.
    Inventors: M. Samuel Moore, Charles F. Paluka
  • Patent number: 4183211
    Abstract: An optimized propulsion system for aircraft whose flight range extends over wide range of speeds. It comprises an outer turbojet engine and an inner turbojet engine housed within a single engine nacelle and arranged concentrically, the outer turbojet engine extending axially and around a narrow portion of the casing of the inner turbojet engine. The invention may be used in the field of variable-cycle engines, and particularly in the field of supersonic transport aircraft.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 1977
    Date of Patent: January 15, 1980
    Assignee: Societe Nationale d'Etude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation
    Inventor: Claude C. F. Menioux
  • Patent number: 4137708
    Abstract: A jet propulsion engine and a method of operating a jet propulsion engine for propulsion of an aircraft over a wide range of speed from zero to supersonic. The engine is a turbofan type with a duct burner and with separate variable exhausts from the duct burner and from the gas turbine engine. The gas turbine core engine includes a gas generator and a low pressure turbine which drives the fan. The fan includes variable outlet guide vanes and the low pressure turbine includes a variable first-stage nozzle. The engine is operated as a normal duct burning by-pass jet engine from zero air speed up to about Mach 3. The fuel to the core engine is shut off through a transition range of speeds. Above this range the engine operates with only the duct burner supplied with fuel, with the gas generator windmilling, and with the low pressure turbine continuing to drive the fan to supercharge the duct burner, which operates as a supercharged ramjet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 1973
    Date of Patent: February 6, 1979
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventors: Robert H. Aspinwall, Charles R. Baker
  • Patent number: 4054030
    Abstract: A variable cycle air breathing gas turbine engine includes a core engine having a combustor, a high pressure turbine stage and a low pressure stage and wherein the high pressure stage drives a compressor for the core engine and the low pressure stage drives a bypass fan for the engine. The low pressure turbine stage includes a row of tip mounted blades located in a first bypass duct and the engine includes auxiliary inlets and crossover valve means for directing air through the first bypass duct during a first mode of engine operation to cause the tip blades on the low pressure turbine stage to operate as an auxiliary bypass fan while the primary fan is driven during the first mode to produce a bypass ratio in a second bypass duct.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 1976
    Date of Patent: October 18, 1977
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventor: George H. Pedersen
  • Patent number: 4047381
    Abstract: Gas turbine engine power plants sometimes are provided with thrust reversing equipment, the outlet of which is close to the power plant air intake. Such arrangements create re-ingestion problems. There is described herein an apparatus which either maintains the upstream portion of reversed flow in a given position with respect to the plane of the air intake or alternatively destroys the reversed flow entirely.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 1976
    Date of Patent: September 13, 1977
    Assignee: Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited
    Inventor: Thomas Eric Smith
  • Patent number: 3999378
    Abstract: A two stage bypass augmentation burner is provided for a gas turbine engine wherein the downstream end of the primary burner is convoluted to define alternating cold and hot chutes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 1974
    Date of Patent: December 28, 1976
    Assignee: General Electric Company
    Inventors: Bemis Caldwell Tatem, Jr., Robert Gordon Stabrylla
  • Patent number: 3987621
    Abstract: In a turbofan engine for jet aircraft the inner stream includes no noise suppression apparatus and the jet exhaust noise generated at takeoff is reduced by mechanically suppressing the jet exhaust noise of the outer stream and operating the engine at a bypass ratio, fan pressure ratio and gas generator power setting which yield a jet exhaust noise level from the suppressed outer stream which is louder than the jet exhaust noise level from the unsuppressed inner stream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 18, 1975
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1976
    Assignee: United Technologies Corporation
    Inventors: Joseph Sabatella, Jr., Henry James Kane, Jr.
  • Patent number: 3969890
    Abstract: A control system for a helicopter power plant with three power units driving the lifting rotor system through a main gearbox. Each power unit comprises a gas turbine engine of the gas-coupled type, a hydromechanical fuel control receiving electrical inputs to set a gas generator governor in the fuel control, an engine electronic control, and various engine accessories.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 17, 1974
    Date of Patent: July 20, 1976
    Assignee: General Motors Corporation
    Inventor: Robert E. Nelson
  • Patent number: 3938328
    Abstract: Air breathing gas turbine engine design concepts, and methods and apparatus for providing variable engine cycles are disclosed. The preferred engine embodiments involve two flow control valve systems for internal management of air, each of which have the capacity to cross-over or invert adjacent annular flow patterns, and at least one of which is capable of switching from inverted to straight through flow.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 1973
    Date of Patent: February 17, 1976
    Assignee: The Boeing Company
    Inventor: Garry W. Klees