• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.187-191
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• 2009

A leakage performance test and an endurance performance test of a 75 ton class turbopump mechanical face seal are performed using water under high speed and high temperature environment. A prototype mechanical face seal is manufactured for the purpose of sealing of fuel between a fuel pump and turbine. By simulating operating condition experimentally, the leakage rate and seal carbon wear rate are obtained to evaluate the performance of the prototype mechanical face seal. The test results show the acceptable leakage performance and reasonable wear tendency as well.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.2989-2994
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• 2000

A mechanical face seal is a tribo-element intended to control leakage of working fluid at the interface of a rotating shaft and its housing. Leakage of working fluid decreases drastically as the clearance between mating seal faces gets smaller. But the very small clearance may result in an increased reduction of seal life because of high wear and heat generation. Therefore, in the design of mechanical face seals a compromise between low leakage and acceptable seal life is important, ant it present a difficult and practical design problem. A fluid film or sealing dam geometry of the seal clearance affects seal lubrication performance very much, and thereby is optimization is one of the main design consideration. in this study the Reynolds equation for the sealing dam of mechanical face seals is numerically analyzed, using the Galerkin finite element method, which is readily applied to various seal geometries, to give lubrication performances, such as opening force, restoring moment, leakage, and axial and angular stiffness coefficients. Then, to improve the seal performance an optimization is performed, considering various design variables simultaneously. For the tested case the optimization ha successfully resulted in the optimal design values of outer and inner seal radii, coning, seal clearance, and balance radius while satisfying all the operation subjected constraints and design variable side-constraints, and improvements of axial and angular stiffness coefficients by 16.8% and 2.4% respectively and reduction of leakage by 38.4% have been achieved.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.314-321
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• 2004

Thermal distortion of non-contacting mechanical seals with inclined rubbing surfaces is affected by friction heat between seal ring and seal seat. The circulation fluid along the inclined rubbing surfaces maintains cooling friction heat and lubrication between the sealing surfaces of mechanical seal with an inclined surface. Mechanical seals with inclined sealing surfaces may be useful for reducing the frictional heating and power loss because of the introduction of cooling fluids to the sealing gap between seal ring and seal seat. From the FEM computed result shows that the thermal behavior and von Mises stress of sealing faces with an inclined angle 60 are much reduced in comparison of the conventional mechanical face seal with rectangular sealing surfaces.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.311-320
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• 2003

In this study a general Galerkin FE formulation of the incompressible Reynolds equation is derived for lubrication analyses of noncontacting mechanical face seals. Then, the formulation is applied to analyze the flexibly mounted stator­type reactor coolant pump seals of local nuclear power plants, which have deep straight grooves or plane coning on their primary seal ring faces. Their various lubrication performances have been predicted. Results show that the analyzed deep straight groove seal should have a net coning of less than 0.6 to satisfy the leakage limit. And for the same amount of equilibrium opening force the plane coning seal requires to have a 3 times higher dimensionless coning than the deep straight groove seal.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.499-502
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• 2006

This paper presents computed results of FEM analysis on the tribological contact behaviors of a primary sealing components of mechanical face seals for a small hydro-power turbine. The FEM computed results present that the contact area between seal rings and seal seats is very important for a good tribological performance such as low friction heating, low wear, high contact normal stress in a primary seal ing components. Based on the FEM computation, model III in which has a small sealing contact area shows low dilatation of primary sealing components, and high contact stress between a seal ring and a 1)seal seat.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.1509-1514
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• 1990

To investigate the seal dynamic instability for a misaligned and coned mechanical face seal, the finite difference approximation was employed to solve the modified Reynolds equation for an incompressible fluid and temperature dependent viscosity. Using the solution, the results for axial force, transverse moment, restoring moment, and ratio of the transverse moment and the restoring moment are calculated for the whole range from zero to full angular misalignment. The results indicate that the transverse moment due to the angular misalignment and coning terms affects considerably the dynamic instability of face seals. It is shown that the simplified treatment of Reynolds equation using the narrow seal approximation overestimate the ratio of the transverse moment to the restoring moment especially at touch.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.79-84
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• 1996

One of the greatest dangers in mechanical face seals is the formation of heat checking and thermal stress cracks on the sliding surfaces. These thermal distortions due to non-uniform heating lead to increase the leakage of the sealed fluids and wear, and with balance of the seal can cause the seal faces to part. In this study heat checking and thermal stress cracks are investigated experimentally. These thermal distortions are explained using the thermal models of the conatct geometries between the seal ring and the seal seat. To overcome these thermal problems, the thermohydrodynamic seal is presented. The newly developed mechanical seal may substantially reduce the friction torque, frictional heating which causes heat checking and thermal stress cracks, and wear.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.119-126
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• 2006

In this paper, the contact behavior characteristics of a primary sealing components such as a seal ring and a seal seat has been presented for a small hydro-power turbine. Using the non-linear FEM analysis, the maximum temperature, the axial displacement, radial differences between a seal ring and a seal seat, and maximum contact normal stress have been analyzed for three optimized sealing profiles in which are designed based on the FEM analysis and Taguchi's experimental method. The three primary sealing profiles between a seal ring and a seal seat are strongly related to a leakage of a water for a hydro-power turbine and wear of a primary sealing component. The computed results show that the contact rubbing area between a seal ring and a seal seat is very important for reducing a friction heating and wear in a sealing gap, and increasing a contact normal stress in primary sealing components. Based on the FEM computation, models II and III in which have a small rubbing surface of seal rings show low dilatation of primary sealing components, and high normal contact stress between a seal ring and a seal seat. Thus, the FEM computed results recommend a short contacting width of a primary sealing component for reducing a leakage and thermal distortions, and expanding a seal life. This means that a conventional primary sealing component may be switched to a reduced sealing face of seal rings.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.34-41
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• 2002

This paper presents the contact thermal behaviors of mechanical seals depending on the contacting face geometry. Using the finite element analysis, the temperature distribution, thermal distortion and leakage have been analyzed as functions of sealing gap and rotating speed of the seal ring shaft. The FE results indicate that the inclined contacting face may be more effective and stable based on the results of thermal characteristic analysis if the seal ring has been designed with a same thermal capacity between conventional rectangular sealing faces and inclined seating surface of seal rings.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 1998

The thermal deformation of the contact seal components has been analyzed using the finite element method. The temperature distributions, the thermal deformations and contact stresses are solved numerically for the contact surface with wear coning effects. The thermal deformation is always shown to distort the sealing surface along the radius of the seal ring. The results show that the deformations of inner radius side are significant compared with those of outer radius. Thus, the thermal deformation due to thermal heatings may promote the coned face wear or wear related thermal cracks at the contacting face of the seal ring component.