General Electric Company
Open rotor and airfoil therefor

Abstract:

An open rotor airfoil apparatus includes: an airfoil body having pressure and suction sides extending in span from a root to a tip, and in chord between leading and trailing edges. A majority of the leading edge in an outer portion of the airfoil body has a sweep equal to or greater than a predetermined sweep profile, selected to produce a blade-relative velocity component perpendicular to the leading edge, at a tip radius, of Mach 0.75 or less, and to produce a blade-relative velocity component perpendicular to the leading edge, at 65% of tip radius, of Mach 0.87 or less, with the blade-relative velocity component perpendicular to the leading edge varying linearly between the two limits, in the presence of transonic or supersonic relative velocity conditions. Each of the blades has a leading edge thickness greater than 0.45% of the chord, measured at a 0.5% chordwise location.