Patent ID: 8584356

Claim:
A method of fabricating a lobed structure for a gas turbine flow mixer having a shape defined by an annular upstream portion extended downstream by a portion forming a multilobed skirt having a plurality of lobes distributed around a longitudinal axis of the lobed structure, the method comprising: making a plurality of elements of a flexible woven fiber texture formed of refractory fibers; making a fiber preform and having a shape corresponding to the shape of the lobed structure to be fabricated, by assembling together said plurality of elements of the flexible woven fiber texture and by shaping the assembled elements of the flexible woven fiber texture with deformation by means of tooling of a shape corresponding to the shape of the lobed structure to be fabricated so as to obtain said fiber preform having a first preform portion corresponding to the annular portion of the lobed structure and a second preform portion corresponding to the multilobed skirt of the lobed structure, said plurality of elements of the flexible woven fiber texture being assembled together at least in part along connection lines extending substantially in the flow direction of the flow past the lobes of the second preform portion of the multilobed skirt; and subsequently densifying the shaped fiber preform by means of a matrix comprising a ceramic material.