Experimental Study on the Friction and Wear Characteristics of Contact Sealing Unit for a Water Turbine

수차용 봉수장치의 마찰.마모특성에 관한 실험적 연구

This paper presents the friction and wear characteristics of contact type sealing unit for a water turbine of a small hydro-power generation, which Is to stop a leakage of a circulating water from a outside of an impeller to an inside of a rolling bearing. The surface wear strongly affect to the seal life of a mechanical face seal. In this study, the hardness of a stainless steel in which is a heat-treated is 892.8 in Vickers hardness and the hardness of silicone carbide of SiC is 714.1 in Vickers hardness. The surface hardness of a heat-treated stainless steel is 25% high compared with that of a ceramic material of SiC. The contact modes of rubbing surfaces aye a dry friction a water film friction and a mixed friction that is contaminated by a dust, silt and moistures, etc. These two factors of a contact rubbing modes and a material property are very important parameters on the tribological performance such as a friction and wear between a seal ring and a seal seat. The experimental result shows that the surface hardness of a seal material is very important on the friction coefficient and a wear volume. Thus, the results recommend higher hardness of a seal material, which may reduce a friction loss and increase a wear life of primary seal components