US-12618333-B2 - Variable flowpath casings for blade tip clearance control

Abstract

Disclosed herein are example variable flowpath casings for blade tip clearance control. An example casing for a turbine engine includes a first annular substrate extending along an axial direction; a second annular substrate positioned radially inward relative to the first annular substrate, the second annular substrate movably coupled to the first annular substrate; and an actuator coupled to the second annular substrate such that a force applied by the actuator moves the second annular substrate relative to the first annular substrate to adjust a tip clearance.

Inventors

• Raghuveer Chinta
• Abhijit Roy
• Vaishnav Raghuvaran
• Srinivas Nuthi
• Ravindra Shankar Ganiger

Assignees

• GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY

Dates

Publication Date

20260505

Application Date

20250421

Priority Date

20220711

Claims (20)

1. 1 . A casing for a turbine engine, the casing comprising: a first annular substrate extending along an axial direction; a second annular substrate extending along the axial direction positioned inward relative to the first annular substrate and movable relative to the first annular substrate, wherein the second annular substrate includes an abradable layer; and an actuator coupled to the abradable layer such that a force applied by the actuator causes the abradable layer to move relative to the axial direction to adjust tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and the abradable layer.
2. 2 . The casing of claim 1 , wherein the abradable layer includes at least one of rubber, nickel-aluminum, or rub strips with supporting lips.
3. 3 . The casing of claim 1 , wherein the abradable layer is connected to the actuator via a hinge rod with a slider joint.
4. 4 . The casing of claim 1 , wherein the actuator applies a first force to cause the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in the axial direction.
5. 5 . The casing of claim 4 , wherein the actuator applies a second force to cause the abradable layer to move from the second position to a third position in a radial direction.
6. 6 . The casing of claim 1 , wherein the force applied by the actuator causes the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in an axial-radial direction.
7. 7 . The casing of claim 1 , wherein movement of the abradable layer causes movement of the second annular substrate, wherein the movement of the second annular substrate causes a change in a spacing between the first annular substrate and the second annular substrate.
8. 8 . An apparatus to control tip clearance of a turbine engine, comprising: interface circuitry; machine-readable instructions; and one or more processors to execute the machine-readable instructions to: monitor tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and an abradable layer of a first substrate, wherein the first substrate extends along an axial direction, is positioned inward relative to a second substrate, and is movable relative to the second substrate; and in response to a determination that the tip clearance is below a threshold value, apply a force via an actuator coupled to the abradable layer to cause the abradable layer of the first substrate to move relative to the axial direction, wherein the determination that the tip clearance is below the threshold value is based on the monitoring of the tip clearance.
9. 9 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the abradable layer includes at least one of rubber, nickel-aluminum, or rub strips with supporting lips.
10. 10 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the abradable layer is connected to the actuator via a hinge rod with a slider joint.
11. 11 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the machine-readable instructions are to cause the one or more processors to apply a first force to cause the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in the axial direction.
12. 12 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the machine-readable instructions are to cause the one or more processors to apply a second force to cause the abradable layer to move from the second position to a third position in a radial direction.
13. 13 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the machine-readable instructions are to cause the one or more processors to cause the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in an axial-radial direction based on the applied force, wherein the applied force is a tangential force.
14. 14 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein movement of the abradable layer causes movement of the second substrate, wherein the movement of the second substrate causes a change in a spacing between the first substrate and the second substrate.
15. 15 . A casing for a turbine engine, the casing comprising: a first substrate means, the first substrate means extending along an axial direction; a second substrate means, the second substrate means extending along the axial direction positioned inward relative to the first substrate means and movable relative to the first substrate means, wherein the second substrate means includes an abradable layer; and a means for actuating, the means for actuating coupled to the abradable layer such that a force applied by the means for actuating causes the abradable layer to move relative to the axial direction to adjust tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and the abradable layer.
16. 16 . The casing of claim 15 , wherein the abradable layer includes at least one of rubber, nickel-aluminum, or rub strips with supporting lips.
17. 17 . The casing of claim 15 , wherein the abradable layer is connected to the means for actuating via a hinge rod with a slider joint.
18. 18 . The casing of claim 15 , wherein the means for actuating applies a first force to cause the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in the axial direction.
19. 19 . The casing of claim 18 , wherein the means for actuating applies a second force to cause the abradable layer to move from the second position to a third position in a radial direction.
20. 20 . The casing of claim 15 , wherein the force applied by the means for actuating causes the abradable layer to move from a first position to a second position in an axial-radial direction.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This patent arises from a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/657,420, filed May 7, 2024 (now U.S. Pat. No. 12,281,577) which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/894,881, filed Aug. 24, 2022 (now U.S. Pat. No. 12,012,859), which claims benefit to Indian Provisional Patent Application No. 202211039662, which was filed on Jul. 11, 2022. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/657,420, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/894,881 and Indian Provisional Patent Application No. 202211039662 are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/657,420, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/894,881 and Indian Provisional Patent Application No. 202211039662 is hereby claimed. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE This disclosure relates generally to turbine engines and, more particularly, to casings of a turbine engine. BACKGROUND A turbine engine, also referred to herein as a gas turbine engine, is a type of internal combustion engine that uses atmospheric air as a moving fluid. A turbine engine generally includes a fan and a core arranged in flow communication with one another. As atmospheric air enters the turbine engine, rotating blades of the fan and the core impel the air downstream, where the air is compressed, mixed with fuel, ignited, and exhausted. Typically, at least one casing or housing surrounds the turbine engine. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an example gas turbine engine in which examples disclosed herein may be implemented. FIG. 2 is a partial cross-sectional view of an example fan including an example variable flowpath casing and an example variable flowpath component structured in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 3 is a schematic cross-sectional axial view of another example variable flowpath component for a variable flowpath casing in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 4 is a schematic cross-sectional axial view of another example variable flowpath component for a variable flowpath casing in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 5 is a schematic cross-sectional circumferential view of an example variable flowpath casing, including an example segmented variable flowpath component, in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 6 is a schematic cross-sectional axial view of another example variable flowpath component for a variable flowpath casing in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 7 is a schematic cross-sectional axial view of another example variable flowpath component for a variable flowpath casing in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an example clearance control system to control a tip clearance between a rotor blade tip and a variable flowpath casing in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. FIG. 9 is a flowchart representative of example machine readable instructions and/or example operations that may be executed by example processor circuitry to implement the clearance control system of FIG. 8. FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an example processing platform including processor circuitry structured to execute the example machine readable instructions and/or the example operations of FIG. 9 to implement the clearance control system of FIG. 8. The figures are not to scale. Instead, the thickness of the layers or regions may be enlarged in the drawings. Although the figures show layers and regions with clean lines and boundaries, some or all of these lines and/or boundaries may be idealized. In reality, the boundaries and/or lines may be unobservable, blended, and/or irregular. As used in this disclosure, stating that any part (e.g., a layer, film, area, region, or plate) is in any way on (e.g., positioned on, located on, disposed on, or formed on, etc.) another part, indicates that the referenced part is either in contact with the other part, or that the referenced part is above the other part with one or more intermediate part(s) located therebetween. As used herein, connection references (e.g., attached, coupled, connected, and joined) may include intermediate members between the elements referenced by the connection reference and/or relative movement between those elements unless otherwise indicated. As such, connection references do not necessarily infer that two elements are directly connected and/or in fixed relation to each other. As used herein, stating that any part is in “contact” with another part is defined to mean that there is no intermediate part between the two parts. Unless specifically stated otherwise, descriptors such as “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., are used herein without imputing or otherwise indicating any meaning of priority, physical order, arrangement in a list, and/or ordering in any way, but are merely used as labels and/or arbitrary names to distinguish elements fo