Linked Inter-Blade Platform Seal for Turbomachine Leakage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing inter-blade platform seals in turbomachines face challenges in maintaining optimal sealing performance due to difficulties in balancing flexibility and stiffness, particularly at areas with significant blade movements and curvature discontinuities, leading to air leaks and reduced turbomachine efficiency.
Innovation Solution
A seal design featuring two linked parts that extend circumferentially around the inter-blade platform, with elastomeric contact portions for flexibility and metal structural portions for rigidity, allowing for coordinated displacement to maintain sealing contact with both intrados and extrados blades, even under centrifugal forces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a single continuous seal is used to ensure flexibility for blade movement, then the seal can accommodate blade displacement, but the seal lacks sufficient stiffness to maintain proper sealing contact at curvature discontinuities
Solution Approach 1:
The seal is divided into multiple independent sealing elements (first sealing element, second sealing element, third sealing element) that can be separately positioned and configured. Each element can independently adapt to local blade movements and curvature changes, allowing the seal to achieve both flexibility for accommodation and stiffness for contact maintenance through strategic placement of rigid sealing surfaces.
2Reliability
If the seal is made stiff to maintain sealing contact, then the seal prevents air leaks, but the seal cannot accommodate significant blade movements
Solution Approach 1:
The seal incorporates movable and adjustable components that allow dynamic adaptation to blade position changes. The sealing elements can be positioned at different locations along the blade and configured to move or adjust their sealing contact point in response to blade displacement, enabling the seal to maintain reliability while accommodating dynamic blade movements.
Solution Approach 2:
The seal utilizes materials and structures that can change their physical parameters (such as elasticity, rigidity, or dimensional characteristics) in response to operational conditions. This allows the seal to modify its stiffness and flexibility characteristics dynamically, maintaining effective sealing contact while adapting to significant blade movements during different operating phases.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the seal is designed for high flexibility to follow blade movement, then the seal accommodates centrifugal forces, but the seal cannot maintain proper contact at brutal or low curvature discontinuity areas
Solution Approach 1:
Different sealing elements are strategically positioned at specific locations along the blade, with each element having optimized local characteristics for its specific region. Sealing elements at curvature discontinuity areas (such as leading edges or leakage edges) are configured with appropriate rigidity and geometric features to maintain precise contact, while other elements provide general flexibility for centrifugal force accommodation.
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 seal effectively follows blade movements, ensuring tightness and improving turbomachine performance by maintaining sealing integrity across various operational phases and curvature changes.
Implementation Method 1
In order to satisfy these different requirements, some configurations have been proposed in which the platforms have a first part, the vein wall, allowing to define the flow vein of the air and to ensure the retention of the platform when the engine is rotated, and a second part, the box, allowing to limit the deformations of the first part under the effects of the centrifugal forces
Data Source
Figure 1~2
Figure 3
Figure 4A~4B
AI summary
A sealing gasket (10) for an inter-blade platform intended to extend circumferentially around an axis and to be mounted between two axial ends of the inter-blade platform, comprising a first portion (10a) in contact with a first blade adjacent to a first circumferential end of the platform, and a second portion (10b) in contact with a second blade adjacent to a second circumferential end of the platform, the first portion (10a) and the second portion (10b) of the sealing gasket (10) being linked to each other such that a circumferential displacement of one of the two portions (10a, 10b) of the sealing gasket (10) causes a circumferential displacement of the other portion (10a, 10b) of the sealing gasket (10) in the same direction, when the two portions (10a, 10b) of the sealing gasket (10) are linked to each other. the other one.