Patent ID: 8651820

Claim:
A tangential entry dovetail assembly for connecting a blade and a rotor wheel in a turbomachine, the assembly comprising: a rotor wheel including one of: a dovetail and a dovetail slot, a blade including the other of the dovetail and the dovetail slot; wherein the dovetail is configured to be inserted into the dovetail slot in a tangential direction to matingly engage the dovetail slot to secure the blade to the rotor wheel; wherein the dovetail includes a pair of dovetail contact surfaces that contact the dovetail slot when matingly engaged, the dovetail contact surfaces being concave with respect to an outer surface of the wheel, and the dovetail slot includes a pair of corresponding dovetail slot contact surfaces that contact the dovetail contact surfaces when matingly engaged, the dovetail slot contact surfaces being convex with respect to the outer surface of the wheel, and wherein the pair of dovetail contact surfaces and the pair of dovetail slot contact surfaces lie along a portion of a common substantially toroidal arc, and each of the contact surfaces has a first axis of toruses coincident with a rotor axis of a turbomachine, and a second axis of toruses lying on one of a dovetail symmetry plane above the dovetail or a dovetail symmetry plane below the dovetail.