ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,509,989, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to RTX Corp. (Farmington, Conn.).
"Mitigating impact of blade out event" was invented by JinQuan Xu (East Greenwich, R.I.) and Michael Winter (New Haven, Conn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An open rotor gas turbine engine includes a gearbox and a fan blade system coupled to the gearbox. The fan blade system includes a hub and a plurality of fan blades affixed to the hub. At least one of the fan blades includes a blade body and a break line formed within the blade body at a location that divides the blade body into sections having parametrically defined masses. The break line has less rigidity th...