TURBINE BUCKET PROFILE YIELDING IMPROVED THROAT

摘要

Turbine frequency tuning, fluid dynamic efficiency, and performance can be improved using a particular airfoil profile, which can be used to determine a throat between adjacent airfoils. By shaping the throat according to the particular profile, the total pressure at an endwall can be energized, improving performance of the turbine.

主权项

1. In a turbomachine including a row of substantially identical buckets circumferentially mounted on a rotor, each bucket including a respective airfoil with opposed pressure and suction sidewalls extending chordwise between opposed leading and trailing edges and spanwise between a root and a tip, a flow passage between each pair of airfoils, each flow passage comprising:
a pressure sidewall of a first airfoil; a suction sidewall of a second airfoil substantially facing the pressure sidewall of the first airfoil; and a throat including an area defined at least in part by a minimum gap between the pressure sidewall of the first airfoil and the suction sidewall of the second airfoil for each corresponding chord along spans of the first and second airfoils, a width of the throat at at least one of the tips or the roots of the airfoils being no more than about 15% more than a width of the throat at a respective first or second distance from the at least one of the tips or the roots.