The main gas-flow path in a gas turbine engine commonly includes a gas intake, a compressor, a combustor, a turbine, and a gas outlet. There are also secondary flows that are used to cool the various heated components of the engine. Mixing of these flows and gas leakage in general, from or into the gas path, is detrimental to engine performance and is generally undesirable.
One particular area in which a leakage path occurs is in the spacing between two gas turbine components such as adjacent vane assemblies or ring segments. Sealing off this leakage path is problematic and various seal designs have been developed to reduce and/or minimize leakage along a lengthwise dimension of the seal, i.e., across a lengthwise edge extending in a generally axial direction of the turbine engine gas path. Accordingly, prior developments in seal designs have typically concentrated on addressing problems comprising, for example, flexibility to compensate for assembly misalignment, different engaging surfaces, vibration from operation, and unequal thermal expansion between adjacent components.
Despite improvements addressing leakage at the lengthwise surfaces of static seals, there continues to be a need to limit or minimize leakage flow between the different gas flow paths on either side of the seal.