Claims
- 1. In a drive system for transfer of drive force from a turbine vane actuating ring to a ring of ceramic turbine vanes via plurality of turbine vane levers each coupled at one end to the ring and at an opposite end to a metal drive shaft, the improvement comprising: means for defining a bow tie configured vane end slot in each of said ceramic vanes, each of said slots having a wall with reduced width center segments and extended side surfaces diverging outwardly from said center segments to form tapered end slots, a cross head on each of said metal drive shafts with flared ends thereon fit in said end slots to engage said side surfaces for distributing a vane drive force across the extended side surfaces so as to attenuate drive force produced loads on said ceramic vane, said flared ends having a length less than that of said end slots to define clearance spaces to accommodate relative thermal growth between the metal of said drive shaft and the ceramic of said vane so as to prevent excessive stress in said vane during operation of the turbine at elevated temperature conditions.
Government Interests
The invention described herein was made in the performance of work under a NASA contract funded by the Department of Energy of the United States Government.
US Referenced Citations (5)
Number |
Name |
Date |
Kind |
2809803 |
Featonby |
Oct 1957 |
|
2996279 |
Lorett et al. |
Aug 1961 |
|
3392958 |
Penny et al. |
Jul 1968 |
|
3910716 |
Roughgarden et al. |
Oct 1975 |
|
3981140 |
Lunsford et al. |
Sep 1976 |
|