Pentagonal Channel Impeller for Additive Manufacturing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing impeller designs for gas turbine engines face manufacturing challenges due to geometric limitations in additive manufacturing, leading to long lead times and high production costs, as traditional methods like casting and brazing require extensive quality assurance testing.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a unique pentagonal channel structure that extends symmetrically in a spiral pattern, allowing for additive manufacturing by ensuring all overhang angles are at least 35 degrees, enabling efficient fluid flow and mechanical efficiency while avoiding the limitations of traditional geometries like triangular channels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If traditional casting or brazing processes are used to manufacture impellers with complex geometry, then manufacturing precision and reliability are improved, but production time and cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the geometric parameters of the channels from traditional circular or triangular cross-sections to pentagonal cross-sections. This parameter change enables the channels to be manufactured using additive manufacturing processes while maintaining the required structural integrity and fluid flow characteristics, thereby reducing production time without sacrificing geometric precision
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from conventional manufacturing dimensions and approaches to additive manufacturing, which builds structures layer-by-layer in the vertical dimension. This dimensional approach allows complex internal geometries like pentagonal channels to be created directly without the time-consuming processes of casting or brazing
2Productivity
If additive manufacturing is used to manufacture impellers, then production time and cost are reduced, but geometric complexity is limited by overhang angle constraints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs asymmetric pentagonal channel geometry where the channel walls are oriented at specific angles relative to the build direction. The channel design ensures that all surfaces have overhang angles of at least 35 degrees, which is the minimum angle that additive manufacturing can reliably produce without additional support structures. This asymmetric orientation allows the complex internal geometry to be manufactured using additive processes
Solution Approach 2:
By changing the channel cross-section from circular or triangular to pentagonal, the patent optimizes the geometric parameters to be compatible with additive manufacturing constraints while maintaining the desired fluid flow characteristics and structural properties
3Strength
If brazing is used to assemble impeller components, then structural strength is improved, but non-destructive quality assurance testing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple impeller components (body, channels, and end caps) into a single monolithic structure manufactured by additive manufacturing. This eliminates the need for brazing operations and the associated non-destructive quality assurance testing, thereby reducing both production time and quality assurance time while maintaining structural integrity
Solution Approach 2:
The additive manufacturing process itself produces a monolithic structure with inherent structural integrity, eliminating the need for separate assembly operations. The process self-ensures quality by creating a unified structure without joints or seams that would require extensive non-destructive testing
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
This approach facilitates faster and cost-effective production of impellers through additive manufacturing, improving mechanical efficiency and reducing production time and costs by eliminating the need for costly non-destructive testing.
Implementation Method 1
Additive manufacturing is a method of manufacturing that creates an object by depositing material in a layer-by-layer process
Implementation Method 2
an impeller can be a rotating component of a fuel pump used to pressurize and thereby increase flow of a fluid
Data Source
AI summary
An impeller includes a body with an interior channel extending through the body along a centerline axis of the impeller. A plurality of blades is connected to the body on a forward end of the impeller centerline axis. The plurality of blades surrounds the interior channel and is fluidly connected to an array of inlets. An array of pentagonal channels extends through the body and radially outward in a spiral pattern. Each pentagonal channel is fluidly connected to a corresponding vane inlet and a corresponding pentagonal-shaped outlet. Each channel maintains a pentagonal cross-section shape from the inlet to the outlet. Each downward-sloping face of the cross section is more than 35 degrees from a horizontal plane perpendicular to the centerline axis of the impeller.