Turbine bucket natural frequency tuning rib

This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-FC21-95MC-31176 awarded by the Department of Energy. The Government has certain rights in this invention.

This invention relates to turbine bucket construction and, more particularly, to the addition of a rib in the cavity of a cored turbine bucket for altering the bucket's natural frequencies.

Gas turbine buckets (blades) operate in an environment where they may be stimulated by multiple impulses, which in turn drive responses corresponding to various natural frequencies of the bucket. The buckets also operate over a variety of speed ranges as well as, at a given speed, different sources of stimuli, exposing them to a large variety of stimuli. It is important to avoid the crossing of a driving stimulus and the bucket natural frequency to prevent premature failure of the bucket in high cycle fatigue. Often, the design of the bucket in terms of its aerodynamic shape, internal cooling geometry, and the like, is dictated to avoid such crossings.

Previously, turbine bucket tuning has been accomplished using devices such as altering the blade aspect ratio (height to chord), TE (trailing edge) cropping, changes in camber, wall thickness, tip mass, shank height, damper designs, and material density or other material properties (e.g., DS, mono-crystal), etc.

It would be desirable, however, to alter certain natural frequencies of a gas turbine bucket so as to avoid these detrimental crossings of natural frequencies and stimuli without impacting other features that are important to the performance of the gas turbine to thereby improve the reliability of a gas turbine.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method of tuning a turbine bucket having an internal cavity includes (a) designing the turbine bucket construction, (b) testing the turbine bucket, and (c) after steps (a) and (b), adding a rib in the internal cavity to thereby alter a natural frequency of the turbine bucket. Step (c) may be practiced by adding a rib in an aft cavity of the turbine bucket to stiffen the compliant trailing edge. The rib may be solid or segmented. This construction is particularly suited for altering high order frequency modes such as 2T, 4F and 1-3S.

In an another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a turbine bucket includes an internal cavity and a tuning rib added in the cavity that alters a natural frequency of the turbine bucket.

FIG. 1 is a cross sectional view of a turbine bucket; and

FIGS. 2 and 3 illustrates a turbine bucket with a segmented tuning rib.

FIG. 1 is a cross sectional view of a gas turbine bucket. Generally, the bucket 10 includes a trailing edge 12 and a leading edge 14 with internal cavities and passageways 16 therein that are generally specifically configured in a serpentine construction to effect cooling of the bucket. Since the detailed construction of a turbine bucket itself does not form part of the present invention, further details will not be described herein. An exemplary bucket description is provided in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,536,143, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

By the present invention, a tuning rib 18 is added preferably in the aft cavity (trailing end) of the cored turbine bucket 10 . The tuning rib 18 serves to alter natural frequencies of the turbine bucket without impacting features of the bucket that are important to efficient performance of the gas turbine. FIG. 2 shows a segmented tuning rib 20 . The tuning rib of the invention is particularly suited for altering high order frequency modes such as 2T, 4F and 1-3S.

Preferably, the rib 18 or 20 may be implemented after the main design phase has been completed. That is, if testing of a completed turbine bucket exhibits potential high cycle fatigue problems based on a natural frequency of the bucket, the natural frequency can be subsequently altered with the addition of the tuning rib 18 or 20 . As such, the aeromechanical response of the bucket may be adjusted or tuned. The tuning rib 18 or 20 can be added in any suitable manner as would be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art such as by conventional investment casting techniques or the like.

With the added rib of the present invention, detrimental crossings of bucket natural frequencies and gas turbine stimuli can be avoided to thereby improve the reliability of a gas turbine. The tuning rib of the present invention can be added without impacting other features that are important to the performance of the gas turbine.

While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiments, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.