Abstract: A fan blade comprises interleaved plies, where interleaving comprises distributing wide plies within narrow plies and short plies within long plies in the fan blade; wherein the interleaving is defined as an actual intersection of a plurality of plies of different variable dimensions that extend in the chordwise direction with another plurality of plies of different variable dimensions that extend in the spanwise direction such that their respective longitudinal axes intersect with one another at angles of 5 to 175 degrees.

Abstract: A gas turbine engine is provided and includes a first fan blade including a suction surface, a second fan blade comprising a pressure surface and neighboring the first fan blade and a throat region interposed between the suction surface of the first fan blade and the pressure surface of the second fan blade. The throat region includes a passage throat located at a minimum distance between the pressure and suction surfaces. The first and second fan blades are configured such that a pre-compression region is defined in the throat region ahead of the passage throat. Each of the first and second fan blades includes a mean camber line defining a flattened suction surface.

Abstract: A gas turbine engine is provided and includes a first fan blade including a suction surface, a second fan blade comprising a pressure surface and neighboring the first fan blade and a throat region interposed between the suction surface of the first fan blade and the pressure surface of the second fan blade. The throat region includes a passage throat located at a minimum distance between the pressure and suction surfaces. The first and second fan blades are configured such that a pre-compression region is defined in the throat region ahead of the passage throat. Each of the first and second fan blades includes a mean camber line defining a flattened suction surface.

Abstract: A fan blade comprises interleaved plies, where interleaving comprises distributing wide plies within narrow plies and short plies within long plies in the fan blade; wherein the interleaving is defined as an actual intersection of a plurality of plies of different variable dimensions that extend in the chordwise direction with another plurality of plies of different variable dimensions that extend in the spanwise direction such that their respective longitudinal axes intersect with one another at angles of 5 to 175 degrees.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is an article comprising a first group of plies having a number of plies N1 each having unidirectional tows oriented in a first direction ?1 and a second group of plies having a number of plies N2 each having unidirectional tows oriented in a second direction ?2; where ?1 is not equal to ?2; wherein N1 and N2 are both integer numbers. At least one of the first group of plies or the second group of plies has at least one tow of different thickness from another tow, has a different tow spacing from another tow spacing, or a combination thereof.

Abstract: This invention presents a method to extract atomic parts of a graphics model using its skeleton. A skeleton is a fully collapsed body of the model, and is obtained through a novel way to contract edges of the model. From the skeleton, atomic parts or features each is a part of the model that is distinctively autonomous from its connected or neighboring body is formed through space sweeping. Next, atomic parts can be connected into a hierarchy depending on the eventual interactive visualization applications. The operation of the method includes the steps of interactively computing, displaying and recording skeleton, atomic parts, and object hierarchies in response to user commands to, for example, modifying skeleton, atomic parts or object hierarchies. Object hierarchies are useful to various applications such as object scene management, view-dependent simplification, mesh-mapping, morphing, and building bounding volume hierarchies.

Abstract: This invention presents a method to extract atomic parts of a graphics model using its skeleton. A skeleton is a fully collapsed body of the model, and is obtained through a novel way to contract edges of the model. From the skeleton, atomic parts or features each is a part of the model that is distinctively autonomous from its connected or neighboring body is formed through space sweeping. Next, atomic parts can be connected into a hierarchy depending on the eventual interactive visualization applications. The operation of the method includes the steps of interactively computing, displaying and recording skeleton, atomic parts, and object hierarchies in response to user commands to, for example, modifying skeleton, atomic parts or object hierarchies. Object hierarchies are useful to various applications such as object scene management, view-dependent simplification, mesh-mapping, morphing, and building bounding volume hierarchies.