That was an interesting picture - since it was a submarine, the purpose
may  very well have been noise. A tip shroud rotating can be handled
quite nicely with current marerials. On an early ducted fan at GE
we used a segmented tip shroud of titanium as a part of the labrynth
sealing of the stage. It did not use hoop, but was completely carried
by a pin and clevis configuration at the tip of the 17-4ph blades.
Carbon fiber in hoop can support a rather high centrifugal load.
Vance

-> Larry Hendrix wrote:

Vance,
Both the picture and your comments are quite interesting, but I could not follow all of your details.  Do you have any pictures of that GE fan assembly, or references that I might find on the 'net?
Thanks,
Larry

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