Bore vane assembly for use with turbine discs having bore entry cooling

Claim 1

A rotor comprising: two generally parallel annular discs for rotation about a common axis, the inner peripheries of said discs being substantially thicker than the outer peripheries thereof and axially displaced relative to each other; a plurality of aerodynamically contoured ribs connected between said discs for pumping a cooling fluid radially outwardly, said ribs extending from a point intermediate the inner and outer peripheries, and each rib terminating in a bulbous tenon, adjacent pairs of which each cooperate to retain the root portion of a turbomachinery blade therebetween; and nonintegral, aerodynamically contoured bore vanes inserted between said discs, each vane having its longitudinal axis generally parallel to the disc rotational axis and its chord extending from the disc inner periphery to a location radially inwardly of said ribs thereby partially defining a cavity between said vanes and said ribs, said vanes further contoured to receive the cooling air from the generally radial direction and turn the cooling fluid tangentially into the cavity in substantial alignment with said ribs; the number of bore vanes being less than the number of ribs and sized to provide axial columnar structural support between said discs to substantially reduce compressive stresses in said ribs due to centrifugal forces tending to rotate the thick disc inner peripheries toward each other.