General Electric Patent Grants

Inducer assembly for a turbine engine

Granted: March 5, 2024
Patent Number: 11918943
A turbine engine having a compressor section, a combustor section, a turbine section, and a rotatable drive shaft that couples a portion of the turbine section and a portion of the compressor section. A bypass conduit couples the compressor section to the turbine section while bypassing at least the combustion section. At least one particle separator is located in the turbine engine having a separator inlet that receives a bypass stream, a separator outlet that receives a…

Method and apparatus for cooling turbine blades

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913387
A minimum creep life location (MCLL) on a blade for a turbine blade design is received. A temperature at the MCLL on the blade is monitored. When the temperature at the MCLL exceeds a predetermined threshold, a cooling air supply is adjusted to lower the temperature below the threshold during engine operation.

Paralleled DC-DC converters with circulating current suppression circuit

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11916468
A converter includes a DC bus, a first DC-DC converter, a second DC-DC converter, and a plurality of circulating current suppression circuits. The first DC-DC converter is coupled to the DC bus and includes a first plurality of switches. The second DC-DC converter is coupled to the DC bus in parallel with the first DC-DC converter. The second DC-DC converter includes a second plurality of switches. The plurality of circulating current suppression circuits are coupled to the DC bus and…

Battery charge and discharge power control in a power grid

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11916422
According to some embodiments, system and method are provided comprising determining a maximum storage capacity of an energy storage system for a time window; performing a first sort of cycles by sorting in numerical order according to a ratio of a load demand to a total available power from a power generation system at each cycle of time window; assigning a unique, charge priority to each cycle; determining, starting from a highest charge priority, a charge power for each cycle until a…

Continuous degree of freedom acoustic cores

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11915679
An acoustic liner is provided. The acoustic liner includes a face sheet, a back sheet spaced from the face sheet, and a core layer defining a cellular structure disposed between the face sheet and the back sheet. The core layer includes a plurality of first resonant cells coupled to the back sheet. Each of the first resonant cells includes a first cell wall coupled to the back sheet along a first cell wall base edge, the first cell wall extending from the back sheet toward the face…

Systems and methods of servicing equipment

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11915531
Systems and methods of servicing equipment including determining, by one or more computing devices, a workscope associated with the equipment; and at least partially-autonomously servicing the equipment in response to the determined workscope.

Autozoning of additive manufacturing print parameters

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11914342
A method, medium, and system including determining a material property value to assign to each of the plurality of 3D volume elements, wherein the material property values assigned to the plurality of 3D volume elements are classified into a predetermined number of bins that correspond to a plurality of different additive manufacturing (AM) print parameter sets, generating a plurality of transfer functions to determine relationships between the material property values assigned to the…

Combustor assembly for a turbine engine

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913645
A combustor assembly for a gas turbine engine defining a radial direction and a circumferential direction includes a liner assembly at least partially defining a combustion chamber and including at least one liner formed of a ceramic matrix composite material and extending between a downstream end and an upstream end, the downstream end of the at least one liner defining an interface surface extending along the circumferential direction; and a seal member also formed of a ceramic matrix…

System and method for slip detection and surface health monitoring in a slip coupling of a rotary shaft

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913429
A method for operating a generator of a wind turbine includes generating, via a controller, a time series of a plurality of operating signals of the generator. The method also includes applying at least one algorithm to the time series of the plurality of operating signals of the generator to generate a processed time series of the of the plurality of operating signals of the generator. Moreover, the method includes identifying, via the controller, patterns in the processed time series…

Trunnion-to-disk connection for an open fan configuration aircraft powerplant

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913408
A trunnion-to-disk connection for use on an open fan configuration of a gas turbine engine may include an integral trunnion and blade spar inserted through a trunnion aperture of a fan disk and supported by top bearing and a bottom bearing. A cavity can be provided between a trunnion of the integral trunnion and blade spar and the fan disk, as well as between the top bearing and bottom bearing. Pressurized hydraulic fluid can be supplied to the cavity to urge the integral trunnion and…

Pressurized airflow to rotate compressor during engine shutdown

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913376
A gas turbine engine includes a compressor section with a compressor rotor shaft assembly including a plurality of compressor rotors longitudinally spaced apart from each other via respective ones of a plurality of shaft sections of a rotor shaft, each compressor rotor of the plurality of compressor rotors having a plurality of rotor vanes extending radially outward therefrom and being circumferentially spaced about the compressor rotor. A stator shroud assembly has a stator shroud…

Part-span shrouds for pitch controlled aircrafts

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913355
Part-span shrouds for pitch controlled aircrafts are disclosed herein. An example apparatus includes a first portion extending from a first airfoil, the first portion including a first surface, the first surface being convex, a second portion extending from a second airfoil towards the first airfoil, the second portion including a second surface the first airfoil circumferentially adjacent to the second airfoil, the second surface being concave, and an interface formed by the first…

Cover plate connections for a hollow fan blade

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913352
Cover plate connections for a hollow fan blade are disclosed. An example fan blade includes a hollow body including a surface defining an airfoil, the hollow body including an aperture extending through the surface, a cover plate, and at least one connection element to couple the cover plate to the surface such that the cover plate encloses the aperture.

Multiple layer structure

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913346
An apparatus a multiple layer structure having a sub-portion defining an impact zone, and having an inner composite fiber layer, an outer composite fiber layer overlying the inner composite fiber layer, and a woven glass layer, where the inner composite fiber layer, outer composite fiber layer, and the woven glass layer overly the impact zone.

System and method of using a tool assembly

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913345
A system and method of using a tool assembly is provided. The system includes a body, a first camera and a second camera fixed to the body, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive data indicative of images of a reference feature from the first camera, determine data indicative of a first spatial position of the first camera based at least in part on the received data indicative of the images of the reference feature, and determine data indicative of a second spatial…

Multi-tube servicing tool and method of servicing gas turbine engine components

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11913344
A method of servicing a portion of a gas turbine engine includes inserting a rigid guide tube into an inspection port in a shroud of the gas turbine engine. The flexible guide tube is inserted into and through the rigid guide tube. The flexible guide tube is pre-shaped such that the flexible guide tube is biased towards a predetermined shape after being inserted through the rigid guide tube. A tool is pushed through the flexible guide tube such that the distal end of the tool moves out…

Systems and methods for additive manufacturing

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11911848
A method of fabricating a component is provided. The method includes depositing particles onto a build platform. The method also includes distributing the particles to form a build layer. The method further includes operating a consolidation device to consolidate a first plurality of particles along a scan path to form a component. The component includes a top surface spaced apart from the build platform and an outer surface. The outer surface extends between the build platform and the…

Rake arm assemblies

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11911823
A rake arm assembly mountable to a build table having an upper surface and an opposite lower surface is provided. The rake arm assembly includes a rake arm body extending in a direction transverse to a working axis and positionable at the upper surface of the build table, a first guide rail mountable to the lower surface of the build table and extending along the working axis, a first rake support member fixed to a first end of the rake arm body and movably supported on the first guide…

Techniques for determining ultrasound probe motion

Granted: February 27, 2024
Patent Number: 11911213
The present disclosure relates to extraction of probe motion estimates from acquired ultrasound image frames. Such image-extracted probe motion data can be used alone or in combination with sensed motion data, such as acquired using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). In certain implementations, the image-extracted probe motion can be used to provide or maintain anatomic context in a sequence of images or to provide guidance to a user.

Partition damper seal configurations for segmented internal cooling hardware

Granted: February 20, 2024
Patent Number: 11905842
Partition damper seal configurations for segmented internal cooling hardware apparatus are disclosed. An example apparatus includes an inner wall and an outer wall, the outer wall spaced apart from the inner wall in a radial direction, a space between the inner and outer walls defining a flow passage, and a body positioned between the inner and outer walls, the body traversing the inner and outer walls in an axial direction and attached to an inner surface of the outer wall and an outer…