This thesis investigates the possibilities to design a re-assemblable eductor tube in the GEnx Turbine Rear Frame (TRF). The eductor tube is mounted inside one of the struts of the TRF and provides pressurized air from the compressor to the center vent tube to support positive pressure differential over bearing seals in the engine. The goal was to develop a basic concept for an eductor tube which can be assembled without welding and disassembled without destructive processing.

Two concepts were selected from the product development process for possible implementation in future TRF models.

• Concept 1, which is designed with a bolt joint that provides a reliable and recognized fastening method.

• Concept 2, which contains a strut tube with flange and retaining plates between the TRF and cast fitting for fixing of the tube.

The project has been executed through a structured product development process through identifying customer needs, product specification, concept generation and concept selection. The goal through the process had been to generate concepts based on customer needs. The concepts have been generated through observations, TRIZ methodology, consulting experts, brainstorming and a concept combination table. To ensure that the concepts were based on customer needs, methods such as House of quality, focus group sessions and a scoring matrix was utilized in the project.

Furthermore, analytical prototypes of the two concepts were created. The prototypes were utilized in order to illustrate the concepts and to determine the geometric boundaries of the concept by detect interference between other components. Hand calculations of concept DG were also performed using a joint diagram in order to determent the concepts mechanical properties for axial loadings.