US Patent 7001152 Shrouded turbine blades with locally increased contact faces

A one-piece blade for a turbine section of a gas turbine engine, the blade comprising a root, an airfoil and a shroud. The shroud extends generally perpendicularly from a tip of the airfoil and is defined by a pair of opposed bearing faces and a pair of opposed non-bearing faces. The bearing faces each have a contact portion adapted to contact a shroud of an adjacent blade. The shroud has a substantially constant nominal thickness and the bearing faces have a substantially constant face thickness across the contact portion, the face thickness being greater than the nominal thickness. The transition between the face thickness and the nominal thickness is substantially discontinuous.