Integrally Formed Fan Track Liner for Gas Turbine Engines
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Solution Overview
Problem
The manufacture of fan containment arrangements with composite fan track liners is complex and time-consuming, and these liners tend to deform structurally during curing, leading to potential containment failures due to non-uniform thermal expansion and structural distortions in gas turbine engines during fan blade-off events.
Innovation Solution
A fan track liner integrally formed from fibre-reinforced polymer material, combining a cellular impact structure and a supporting sub-laminate, which ensures uniform thermal expansion and minimizes structural distortions, featuring a honeycomb structure with a ballistic barrier for enhanced impact resistance, and additive manufacturing for streamlined production.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If composite fan track liners are manufactured using traditional multi-layer bonding processes, then the manufacturing complexity and time increase, but the structural integrity and thermal uniformity are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the cellular impact structure and supporting sub-laminate into a single integrally formed composite fan track liner made from fibre-reinforced polymer material. This merging eliminates the need for separate bonding processes between different materials, reducing manufacturing complexity while maintaining structural integrity and thermal uniformity throughout the liner structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses fibre-reinforced polymer material to create an integral structure that combines the properties of both cellular impact absorption and structural support. This composite material approach allows a single homogeneous structure to perform multiple functions that previously required separate bonded layers of different materials.
2Manufacturing precision
If traditional multi-material fan track liners are used, then manufacturing time increases, but thermal expansion uniformity decreases causing structural distortions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the cellular impact structure and supporting sub-laminate into a single integrally formed component made from the same fibre-reinforced polymer material. This ensures uniform thermal expansion characteristics throughout the entire liner structure, preventing structural distortions during curing and operation, while significantly reducing manufacturing time by eliminating multi-step bonding processes.
3Strength
If separate cellular material and laminate layers are bonded together, then the manufacturing process becomes complex and time-consuming, but the impact absorption capability is maintained
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the cellular impact structure and supporting sub-laminate into a single integrally formed structure that maintains impact absorption capability through its cellular geometry rather than relying on bonded interfaces between different materials. This merging dramatically improves manufacturing efficiency by eliminating the bonding process while preserving the essential impact absorption function.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses fibre-reinforced polymer material with specific local cellular geometry to provide impact absorption in the cellular regions while maintaining structural support in the sub-laminate regions, all within a single homogeneous material structure. This local quality approach allows different functional zones to be achieved through material architecture rather than material composition changes.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution reduces structural distortions and enhances impact resistance by ensuring uniform thermal expansion and integrating a ballistic barrier, thereby improving the reliability and efficiency of fan containment arrangements in gas turbine engines.
Implementation Method 1
Fan track liners are designed to absorb some of the energy of an impacting blade during an FBO event
Implementation Method 2
the thermal behaviour of the cellular impact structure (i.e. the behaviour of the cellular impact structure in response to heating and/or cooling) may be substantially the same as the thermal behaviour of the supporting sub-laminate
Data Source
AI summary
A fan track liner for a fan containment arrangement for a gas turbine engine comprises a cellular impact structure and a supporting sub-laminate integrally formed with each other from a fibre-reinforced polymer material.