A fixture and method for installing turbine buckets is disclosed. The fixture is adapted for mounting a plurality of turbine buckets with dovetails to a rotor wheel of a turbomachine that is separated from an adjacent rotor wheel by a spacer wheel, the rotor wheel and the spacer wheel each having a plurality of circumferentially aligned dovetail slots, the fixture includes: a turbine bucket holder having a dovetail that is configured to engage with one of the dovetail slots of the spacer wheel. The profile of a bucket holder dovetail slot substantially aligns the dovetail of the turbine bucket with a dovetail slot of the rotor wheel for at least partial transfer of a turbine bucket thereto.

A method of heating a gas by directing X-rays at a mass of hafnium 178 to induce gamma rays. The gamma rays are directed at a heat exchanging apparatus, resulting in a stream of heated gas. This process powers a Hafnium gas turbine engine capable of providing shaft power or thrust to mechanical devices.

A cooling system according to an embodiment includes: a forked passage cooling circuit, the forked passage cooling circuit including a first leg and a second leg; and an air feed cavity for supplying cooling air to the first leg and the second leg of the forked passage cooling circuit; wherein the first leg of the forked passage cooling circuit extends radially outward from and at least partially covers at least one central plenum of a multi-wall blade, and wherein the second leg of the forked passage cooling circuit extends radially outward from and at least partially covers a first set of near wall cooling channels in the multi-wall blade.

In one embodiment, a gas turbine system includes a controller configured to receive fuel composition information related to a fuel used for combustion in a turbine combustor; receive oxidant composition information related to an oxidant used for combustion in the turbine combustor; receive oxidant flow information related to a flow of the oxidant to the turbine combustor; determine a stoichiometric fuel-to-oxidant ratio based at least on the fuel composition information and the oxidant composition information; and generate a control signal for input to a fuel flow control system configured to control a flow of the fuel to the turbine combustor based on the oxidant flow information, a target equivalence ratio, and the stoichiometric fuel-to-oxidant ratio to enable combustion at the target equivalence ratio in the presence of an exhaust diluent within the turbine combustor.

A gas turbine engine including core engine is provided. Air may enter the core engine through an inlet and travel through and engine air flowpath extending through the core engine, e.g., generally along an axial direction of the gas turbine engine. The gas turbine engine additionally includes a cooling air flowpath extending outwardly generally along the radial direction of the gas turbine engine. The cooling air flowpath extends between an inlet in flow communication with engine air flowpath and an outlet defined by an opening in an outer casing of the core engine. Moreover, the gas turbine engine includes a heat exchanger positioned at least partially within the outer casing the core engine with the cooling air flowpath extending over or through the heat exchanger.

A method of controlling cooling in an aircraft system includes endothermically cracking a fuel to increase its cooling capacity using a catalyst that includes at least one transition metal compound of at least one of carbides, nitrides, oxynitrides, oxycarbonitrides, oxycarbides, phosphides, and combinations, and the transition metal includes at least one of zirconium, hafnium, tantalum, niobium, molybdenum, tungsten, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium, rhenium, and combinations thereof. The cracked fuel is used to cool a heat source that includes an aircraft component.

A system is provided with a turbine combustor having a first diffusion fuel nozzle, wherein the first diffusion fuel nozzle has first and second passages that separately inject respective first and second flows into a chamber of the turbine combustor to produce a diffusion flame. The first flow includes a first fuel, and the second flow includes a first oxidant and a first diluent. The system includes a turbine driven by combustion products from the diffusion flame in the turbine combustor. The system also includes an exhaust gas compressor, wherein the exhaust gas compressor is configured to compress and route an exhaust gas from the turbine to the turbine combustor along an exhaust recirculation path.

An aircraft, controller, and method for simultaneously using a liquid fuel and a gaseous fuel. The use of natural gas and other similar fuels in gas turbines engines can enable an aircraft to operate less expensively. However, aircraft often use liquid fuels en route to the gas turbine engine burners for secondary purposes, such as oil cooling and hydraulic pressure. The aircraft, controllers, and methods described herein feed a minimal quantity of liquid fuel to an engine to satisfy the secondary purposes while simultaneously feeding a quantity of gaseous fuel to the engine to satisfy a thrust command for the engine.

A gas turbine engine has a compressor rotor with blades and a disk. A bore is defined radially inwardly of the disk. A combustor includes a burner nozzle. A tap taps air that has been combusted in the combustor section through a valve, and into the bore of the disk. A method is also disclosed.

A combustor includes a shell that bounds at least a portion of a combustion chamber. The shell includes a wall that has an orifice that opens to the combustion chamber. A grommet includes a body portion and a lip that projects from the body portion. The body portion and the lip carry a surface that extends around a passage through the grommet. At least a portion of the lip extends within the orifice of the wall of the shell.