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US0051 10262A
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United States Patent (19) 11 Patent Number: 5,110,262
Evans (45) Date of Patent: May 5, 1992
54 ATTACHMENT OF A GASTURBINE 4,824,328 4/1989 Pisz et al. ............................ 416/248
ENGINE BLADE TO A TURBINE ROTOR
DISC FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
O8846 3/1955 France .
75 Inventor: Neil M. Evans, Bristol, England 1453838 10/1976 United Kingdom .
73) Assignee: Rolls-Royce plc, London, England 87/00778 2/1987 World Int. Prop. O. .
(21) Appl. No.: 615,406 Primary Examiner-John T. Kwon
Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Oliff & Berridge
22 Filed: Nov. 19, 1990
(30) Foreign Application Priority Data (57) ABSTRACT
Nov. 30, 1989 (GB) United Kingdom ................. 892.7096 In a gas turbine firtree root tooth structure in which a
firtree root is retained in a shaped slot in a turbine rotor
51) Int. Cl. ................................................ F01D 5/30 disc by virtue of teeth cooperating with notches in the
52) U.S. C. ................................................ 416/219 R slot, the bearing surface of a root tooth is barrelled
58 Field of Search ............... 416/219 R, 219 A, 221, against a planar surface of the respective notch so as to
416/248, 500 give point contact against that surface, whereby, under
(56) References Cited load, the barrelled surface crushes so as to override
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS pitch tolerances and even out load distribution. If the
barrelling is located at or in the vicinity of the tooth
4,169,694 10/1979 Sanday ............................ 416/219 R face center, the tendency of the tooth to crack under
4,191.509 3/1980 Leonardi ......................... 416/219 R repeated loadings is minimized.
4,260,331 4/1981 Goodwin ........................ 46/29 R
4,692,976 9/1987 Andrews ......................... 46/219 R
4.820, 126 4/1989 Gavilan ............................... 416/22 5 Claims, 2 Drawing Sheets
L(el-pl)
U.S. Patent May 5, 1992 Sheet 2 of 2 5,110,262
Fig. 3 1S
L(e)
/
(tot) 27
L(el-pl) 27 2/
N
N
N
NN eZ \ O
/
/ 28 \
L(el)2 27 30 b --
\
22 ea - \
NY.
2
% 26
\\
2// \
h 22
5,110,262
2
one tooth adapted to engage with a notch within a
ATTACHMENT OF A GASTURBINE ENGINE shaped slot formed in the disc to which the blade is
BLADE TO A TURBINE ROTOR DSC attached, characterized in that an undercut surface of
the notch adjacent a flank of a said at least one tooth is
This invention relates to an improved attachment of a 5 substantially planar and the flank has a convex curva
gas turbine engine blade to a turbine rotor disc. ture having a maximum elevation relative to a straight
As is well known in the art, the airfoil blades of a gas line drawn between the tip of the tooth and the base of
turbine engine, both in the compressors and the tur an adjacent trough, whereby initial contact between the
bines, usually extend radially from a disc or drum or undercut surface and the flank under zero loading is
similar rotor structure. The engagement between the O solely at the location of said maximum elevation and
blades and the supporting rotor disc is a most important under increased loading the flank crushes at said loca
part of the design of any such bladed rotor; it must tion to provide an area of load-spreading contact
sustain the loads carried from the blade to the rotor around said location.
without failure, and it must be overall as small as possi Preferably, the location of the maximum elevation is
ble in order to reduce the size of the blade root and disc 15 at a point providing an optimum balance between root
rim to a minimum. and disc notch stresses, which point may be at or near
In the past, a variety of root attachments have been the mid-point of the tooth flank.
proposed and used. These have usually been of a gen Preferably, the firtree root comprises at least two
eral type in which the root has projections which en opposed pairs of teeth.
gage with undercut surfaces of a corresponding slot or 20 Preferably, only one flank of a tooth, being the radi.
groove in the periphery of the rotor disc. The slots may ally outer flank of the tooth with respect to the axis of
extend between opposed faces of the disc, or may ex the disc, is convexedly curved, the other flank being
tend circumferentially of the disc periphery. One substantially planar.
widely used member of the former class is called a "fir The invention will now be described by way of exam
tree' root attachment, after the approximate resem 25 ple only with reference to the accompanying diagram
blance of the cross-section of the blade provided to a fir matic non-scale drawings in which:
tree. One such firtree root is described and illustrated in FIG. 1 is a partly cut away view of an aircraft gas
our British Patent 2030657B. The present invention is turbine engine having a root attachment in accordance
particularly concerned with firtree root attachments. with the invention, -
The increased performance demanded of gas turbine 30 FIG. 2 is an enlarged section through a blade and
engines in modern aircraft, especially in those of the root portion of the engine of FIG. 1 and in accordance
military genre, imposes very high loads on the turbine with the invention, and
blades and correspondingly high loads on the teeth of FIG. 3 is a further enlargement of portion III of the
the firtree root attachments. section of FIG. 2, showing further detail of the inven
After several hundred hours of high performance 35 tion.
loading it is possible for a serration crack to appear in In FIG. 1 there is shown an aircraft gas turbine en
the firtree root. Of the estimated serration stress more gine cornprising a casing 10, within which are mounted
than half may be due to tooth bending. In a high perfor a compressor 11, a combustion chamber 12, a turbine 13
mance high pressure turbine up to 50% of the total load and a final nozzle 14. Operation of the engine overall is
carried by the turbine disc will be incorporated in the 40 conventional and is therefore not described herein.
blade firtree and its associated disc firtree. For turbines The casing 10 is shown cut away in the vicinity of the
designed for even higher performance this percentage turbine 13 to expose to view the turbine rotor disc 15
of total load carried by the disc will increase even more. and its associated rotor blades 16. As is usual in gas
The problem of increased stressing of the root teeth turbines, the blades 16 are not integral with the rotor
due to increased performance requirements may be 45 disc 15 but are held in axially extending (but not parallel
overcome by reducing the number of teeth per root with the disc axis) slots or grooves by the engagement
from 4 to 2, for example, and by reducing the tooth therein of correspondingly shaped roots 18. The blades
aspect ratio accordingly. The tooth aspect ratio is the 16 are mounted in an angularly spaced apart circumfer
ratio of the perpendicular distance between the apex of ential row on the disc 15.
a tooth and an adjacent trough and the width of the 50 FIG. 2 shows in enlargement a cross-section through
tooth between adjacent troughs. the mid-section of one of the blades 16 and the associ
Reduction of the tooth aspect ratio results in a stiffer ated area of disc 15, the plane of the section being per
tooth and lower bending stresses. However, this benefi pendicular to the disc axis. Shown in section are the
cial effect can raise a further problem in that the load airfoil 19, the platform 20, the root shank 21, and the
distribution between pairs of teeth radially disposed is 55 root 18 itself. The root 18, as shown, is provided with
made worse due to the reduced tooth deflections being six teeth 22 disposed in two opposed plane arrays 23, 24
less able to accomodate the radial tolerances between of three teeth each, symmetrically disposed about the
adjacent pairs of teeth. It is an object of the present central plane 25 of the blade.
invention to alleviate this problem. Each tooth 22 is located in a respective notch 26
Accordingly, in general terms the present invention extending perpendicularly to the central plane 25. Each
seeks to alleviate undesirable load distributions in a notch 26 is of a shape corresponding generally to the
firtree root tooth by providing localized contact only shape of the tooth 22 located in it, the undercut surface
between a flank of the tooth and an adjacent undercut 27 of the notch, that is, the surface nearest the radially
surface of a corresponding slot in the rotor disc to outer surface of the disc, being planar in its extent from
which the root is attached 65 the trough of the notch to the peak between that notch
In particular, there may be provided a root attach and the next. However, as will be described below, the
ment for a blade of a gas turbine engine, the attachment profile of each notch 26 is not identical to that of the
comprising a firtree root on the blade which has at least corresponding tooth 22.
5,110,262 4.
3
It will be appreciated that the teeth 22 have a longitu and elastic deformation. Therefore, L(tot) = -
dinal extent equal to that of the entire root; that is, they L(el--pl)+2XL(el).
extend into and out of the plane of the paper in the Although three pairs of teeth 22 are illustrated, it will
orientation of FIG. 2. However, the shape of the teeth be understood that in other embodiments of the inven
remains constant throughout their longitudinal extent tion fewer or more than three pairs of teeth may be used
and the further enlarged view of FIG. 3 enables this without departing from the scope of the invention.
shape to be understood more easily. It should be under Further, in some embodiments, the point 30 of max
imum-elevation of the curvature of the tooth flank need
stood that all the teeth have the same general profile so not coincide with the center point of the tooth flank if it
that although only one tooth is described with reference to is desired to move the balance between the various
to FIG. 3, all the other teeth will in fact be similar. stresses towards the position of peak blade stress in the
As is shown in FIG. 3, the radially outermost flank 28 trough between two teeth, or towards the position of
of tooth 22 is convexedly curved so that it contacts the peak disc stress, which is in the trough of a disc notch.
opposed undercut surface 27 of the notch 26 at a contact I claim:
point 29 of that surface. This curvature of the tooth 15 1. In a gas turbine engine having a plurality of airfoil
flank is herein termed "barrelling". The barrelling of blades attached to a rotor disc, a root attachment for
the flank 28 is chosen so that it reaches a maximum one blade, comprising a firtree root on the blade which
elevation relative to a straight line drawn between the has at least one tooth adapted to engage with a notch
tip of the tooth and the base of an adjacent trough at a 20 within a shaped slot formed in the disc to which the
point 30 which is chosen as that point of the tooth blade is attached, said at least one tooth having a tip and
there being a trough adjacent the tooth, such that an
which provides an optimum balance between blade root undercut
and disc notch stresses when subjected to load, and least one surface tooth is
of the notch adjacent a flank of said at
substantially planar and the flank has
which corresponds to the point of contact 29 with the a convex curvature having a maximum elevation rela
notch surface 27. This point 30 will usually be at or near tive to a straight line drawn between the tip of the tooth
the center of the tooth flank. and the base of the adjacent trough, whereby initial
The effect of the barrelling of the tooth flank 28 contact between the undercut surface and the flank
against the planar undercut surface 27 of the notch 26 is under zero loading is solely at a location of said maxi
that under load the bearing surface of the tooth will mum elevation and under increased loading the flank
crush and spread out in area around the point 30 so as to 30 crushes at said location to provide an area of load
override pitch tolerance and even out load distributions spreading contact around said location.
and thereby minimize the onset of cracking. 2. A root attachment as claimed in claim 1 wherein
A number of chain lines drawn in FIG. 3 show the the location of the maximum elevation is at a point
dimensions of the tooth 22 and the distortions taking 35 disc providing an optimum balance between the root and
place when it is under load against the undercut surface notch stresses.
of the notch 26. Accordingly, 'a' is the width of the the point 3. A root attachment as claimed in claim 2 wherein
tooth 22 across its base between adjacent troughs, and is at or near the mid-point of the tooth flank.
4. A root attachment as claimed in claim wherein
"b" is the height of the tooth, and, as mentioned above, the firtree root comprises at least two opposed pairs of
the ratio b/a is the aspect ratio of the tooth, "h" is the 40 teeth.
barrel height of the tooth flank 28, "d" is the maximum 5. A root attachment as claimed in claim 1 wherein
depth of surface deformation of the barrelling under only one flank of a tooth, being the radially outer flank
load, "L(tot)' is the bearing surface contact width, of the tooth with respect to the axis of the rotor, is
"L(el)" is that portion of the bearing surface subject to convexedly curved, the other flank being substantially
elastic deformation only, and "L(el-pl)" is that portion 45 planar.
of the bearing surface subject to a combination of plastic k
50
55
65
