Heat Accumulation Segment for Gas Turbine Guide Blade Maintenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mechanical vibrations in gas turbine systems cause damage to tape seals between guide blades, leading to leakage and requiring frequent maintenance, where entire guide blade rows often need to be dismantled for seal replacement.
Innovation Solution
A heat accumulation segment with two axially opposed joining contoured elements, featuring a radially oriented recess and collar portions, allows for secure and detachable connection between guide blades, reducing the need to dismantle entire rows during maintenance and extending seal replacement intervals.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If tape seals are used between guide blades to prevent gas leakage, then gas-tight sealing is improved, but mechanical vibrations cause seal damage and require frequent maintenance
Solution Approach 1:
The guide blade row is segmented into individual replaceable units, each with its own sealing arrangement. This allows replacement of single damaged blades rather than entire rows, directly reducing maintenance frequency while maintaining seal integrity through localized sealing solutions
2Reliability
If entire guide blade rows are dismantled for seal replacement, then complete seal inspection is improved, but maintenance complexity and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The sealing system is divided into independent modular units associated with individual guide blades. Each unit can be inspected and maintained separately, allowing complete seal inspection without dismantling entire blade rows, thus reducing maintenance complexity while ensuring thorough inspection
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing arrangement is designed to be dynamically adjustable and adaptable to individual blade positions. This enables flexible access to sealing components on each blade independently, simplifying maintenance procedures while maintaining inspection completeness
3Use of energy by moving object
If tape seals are used to prevent cooling air escape, then cooling efficiency is improved, but vibration-induced seal failure reduces cooling reliability
Solution Approach 1:
The cooling air sealing is segmented into individual blade-level arrangements rather than continuous tape seals. This ensures that cooling air containment is maintained through multiple independent sealing points, improving reliability by preventing total cooling failure even if individual seals are damaged
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing design incorporates vibration-resistant features and tolerance compensation that cushion against vibration-induced failures before they occur. This protective design maintains cooling reliability under vibrational conditions while preserving cooling air utilization efficiency
Data Source
AI summary
A heat accumulation segment for local separation of a flow duct inside a turbo engine, from a stator housing that radially surrounds the flow duct is provided. The heat accumulation segment includes two axially opposed joining contoured elements that are engagable with two components that are axially adjacent along the flow duct. A first one of the two joining contoured elements has a radially oriented recess with a contoured surface against which a securing pin having an external contour complementary to the contoured surface acts radially under force action from a component that adjoins the first joining contoured element. The first joining contoured element has a collar portion having radially upper and lower collar surfaces, and the collar portion is connected within a counter-contoured receiving contoured element in the axially adjacent component by a joining force that acts between the securing pin and the conical contoured surface.