Abstract: A cast metal turbine wheel is made comprising a cylindrical disc with equiaxed grains and integral blades with columnar grains oriented substantially parallel to the leading and trailing blade edges. The blades are solidified unidirectionally by withdrawing heat through chill means located adjacent the mold at the blade tips. Cooling is inhibited from other blade surfaces by retaining cast metal in mold portions located above and below the blades. The disc portion of the mold is insulated so that it cools slowly to promote grain nucleation throughout the metal therein and equiaxed grain growth.

Abstract: A gas turbine engine has conduits leading from the compressor to the turbine for bleeding a portion of compressor air through the turbine blades for cooling or other purposes. A radial pump in the conduits formed by a tangential accelerator and a rotating diffuser transmits the air from the non-rotating environment in the engine to the rotating environment of the turbine rotor. The tangential accelerator accelerates the bleed air to a tangential speed higher than that of the rotor, and the radial diffuser is designed to recover the dynamic pressure or relative velocity of the air over the rotor.

Abstract: A large wind turbine rotor blade having a filament wound composite spar securely mounted to a support structure in a manner by which blade loads are transmitted via redundant load paths. Concentric inner and outer metallic adapter sleeves are bonded to the inboard end of the blade spar, and the adapter sleeves and blade spar are joined by a first series of shear bolts and nuts which pass radially through the spar. A second series of radially extending bolts and nuts join the inner and outer sleeves slightly inboard of the end of the spar. The end of the spar is of slightly reduced diameter forming a conical surface which interacts with the inner and outer sleeves to produce a positive lock when the blade is subject to centrifugal loads. The outer sleeve is adapted to be connected to the support structure by conventional techniques such as by a plurality of bolts which extend axially into the butt end of the outer sleeve.

Abstract: A fan impeller comprises a back plate, a front plate and a plurality of blades fixedly attached between the front plate and the back plate. Two bars are welded to the back of each blade and are bolted to the front and back plates. Each blade is a channel section member having a base and two sides, the base being normal to the planes of the front and back plates of the impeller, one side lying along the front plate and the other side lying along the back plate. The sides extend from the base in the direction of rotation of the impeller in use so that the inside of each channel section is presented to the airstream as the impeller rotates. The inside working surface of each blade may be hardened to a minimum hardness of Rockwell C55.

Abstract: A fan for use as a front fan or in the lift fan system with aircraft jet engines having blades supported by a segmented hub platform and a segmented tip platform which are supported by hub support hoops and tip support hoops. The blades are secured to the hub platform segments and tip platform segments by composite pre-preg pin stock which is inserted in holes in the tip platform, the hub platform and fan blades. The pins are placed under axial compression to expand the pin diameter to provide a precise fit. Channel members are provided between the tip hoops and the blades. Some of the channels have extensions which form seals.

Abstract: A device for moving air from the jet flow of an axial compressor of a gas rbine group, to be conducted along the axis of the group to the turbine to be cooled. The air is moved by a wheel having an outer rim serving as a brace between two adjacent compressor disks and centripetal blading which moves the air through openings formed in the rim, to accelerate it and discharge it into a space surrounding the axis of the compressor.

Abstract: In an impeller of a centrifugal blower of the backward type having a relatively large blade inlet width as contrasted with the diameter of the impeller, blades are each shaped, as seen from the axial direction of a rotary shaft, in a concave curve with respect of rotation of the impeller, each of the blades has a larger inlet diameter on the shroud plate side than on the hub plate side, and each of the blades has a leading edge shaped, in a meridional plane, in a smooth convex curve directed radially inwardly of the impeller. By these structural features, it is possible to bring the inlet blade angle into agreement with the inlet relative flow angle at each point of the leading edge of each blade and to reduce the rate of a reduction in the velocity of flow on the shroud plate side.

Abstract: Cooling airflow to the shroud support apparatus is varied in response to both rotor speed and elapsed time above a predetermined level by the selective use and mixture of two air sources at different temperatures. For steady-state operation, each of four different operating modes has its prescribed cooling air delivery mode such that, generally, as the engine speed and cycle temperatures increase, so does that of the cooling air. For transient operation, a timer is employed to sequence the desired cooling air delivery modes in such a manner as to maintain optimum rotor-to-shroud clearances during the transient period.

Abstract: A timing valve is responsive to certain hydraulic rotor speed input signals so as to schedule increased temperatures of air to a turbine shroud support in accordance with the thermal time constants of the rotor. Clearance between the rotor and the shroud is thereby minimized during both transient and steady-state operating conditions. Temperatures are incrementally increased by selectively combining air from the compressor fifth and ninth stage bleed manifolds. Under certain operating conditions, the timing valve is pre-empted and air is provided at a predetermined temperature level as a function of rotor speed only.

Abstract: A blade of the fan wheel of a diagonal-flow fan, which blade should ideally have a shape of a twisted double-curvature or undevelopable surface, is formed from a portion of a cylinder, which has a single-curvature or developable surface. To realize the formation of a blade from the single-curvature surface, lines of intersection between a cylinder and a number of coaxial imaginary conical surfaces representing streamlines in the fan wheel are used as a basis for design.

Abstract: A device for generating a thrust in a liquid utilizing rotating cylinders. The cylinders are mounted on a rotatable hub and rotate about their own axes relative to the hub. The relative rotation follows, preferably, a sinusoidal path for producing the thrust, and in particular, each cylinder undergoes a reversal in its direction of rotation after each half rotation of the hub. A common control bar is included which is connected to each cylinder and eccentrically with respect to the axis of rotation of the hub so that the points of reversal and the direction of thrust can be adjusted.

Abstract: A cooled rotor blade for a gas turbine has an aerofoil in which there are longitudinally extending cooling fluid passages. At the tip of the aerofoil is located a separate, chordwise extending tube. The tube has apertures in its wall which correspond with at least some of the cooling fluid passages, whereby the spent cooling fluid from these passages may pass through the tube to rejoin the gas flow of the engine.

Abstract: Throttle bushing for a large capacity volute slurry pump in which the impeller is on the end of a cantilever drive shaft a substantial distance from the bearing support for the shaft and the shaft is subject to droop by its weight and the weight of the impeller. The weight of the overhanging shaft and impeller in addition to irregular loads on the shaft gives the shaft an exponential shape. The throttle bushing is between the impeller and packing or seal and is machined to take the same shape the shaft will take under load regardless of the angular direction of the load and to clear the shaft in all conditions of droop thereof as well as gyrations which will occur from unequal loads on the impeller when the pump is starting up or operating at over-capacity.

Abstract: An inherent eccentricity between the rotor bearings and the stator shroud is reduced by intentionally fabricating into each of a pair of frame annuluses, outer and inner surfaces which are relatively eccentric, and then rotating the annuluses with respect to each other until the inherent eccentricity is substantially offset. A method is provided to determine the optimum relative rotational positions as a function of the measured inherent eccentricity, and restrictions in the number of possible rotational positions are considered.

Abstract: A turbine housing for a jet engine is provided with a ring of an abradable orous material. A supporting and mounting device consisting of a cylindricoconical monoblock having a conical internal jacket provides for the convection cooling of the external surface and a cylindrical jacket for cooling air is held over the abradable ring by means of a perforated ferrule integral with the rest of the device. The abradable ring carries transverse partitions to prevent axial leakage.

Abstract: A shrouded blade for insertion into an axial disk slot and having a radial spacer and a circumferential groove is provided with a segmented retainer bar which fits into the circumferential groove to axially retain the blade. The retainer bar includes flanges which extend radially inward on either side of the spacer such that the spacer provides positive placement for the retainer bar in both the radial and circumferential directions.

Abstract: A centripetal turbine rotor has ceramic blades with integral blade roots of arcuate axial section which are clamped axially between two supporting elements mounted on a common shaft so that the ceramic blade roots are maintained in compressive stress along their arcuate, radially inwardly convex, profiles, opposing centrifugal strain in the blade roots.Cooling air may be supplied along axial channels in one hub to an internal chamber within the blade roots and may thence flow outwardly into the gases flowing through the turbine.

Abstract: A liquid cooled stator blade assembly for a gas turbine engine includes an outer shroud having a pair of liquid inlets and a pair of liquid outlets supplied through a header and wherein means including tubes support the header radially outwardly of the shroud and also couple the header with the pair of liquid inlets and outlets.

Abstract: In an axial fan having an impeller with settable blades and wherein the root end of each blade connects, via a bearing permitting rotation of the blade, to the outer end of a blade-attachment shaft extending substantially radially relative to the impeller, the blade-attachment shaft is rigidly connected at its inner end to an impeller hub. The blade-attachment shaft is abutted against the radial outer side of the hub and is pre-tensioned by compressing said shaft in the longitudinal direction thereof against said hub.

Abstract: An improved heat shield and thermal insulating arrangement for a hub 12 of a high temperature centrifugal fan includes a cover overlying thermal insulation 38, the cover including a circumferential portion comprising segments 42, 44, an end ring 52, and fasteners 54, 58 holding the cover to the hub and a locking collar 28, with the cover basically shielding the root portion 20 of the hub, and being remote from and unattached to the wheel plate 16.