Performance of Gas-Liquid Upstream Pumping Spiral Groove Mechanical Face Seals

抄録

Upstream pumping spiral grooves provides an effective way to realize design of mechanical seals with long service life as well as low leakage rate, which largely lies on precise design of spiral grooves under gas-liquid lubricating boundary conditions. The originality of this paper is to consider the gas phase pressure boundary in order to be suitable for more complex gas-liquid seal analysis. An numerical analysis of performance of upstream pumping spiral groove mechanical face seals is carried outunder gas-liquid boundary conditions. Opening force and leakage rate are calculated taking account of gas-liquid fluid medium boundary conditions as well as cavitation effect. The results show that the opening force and leakage rate decrease obviously under gas-liquid boundary conditions, compared with the full liquid boundary conditions, exceeding 50% in degree. Besides, the groove parameters such as spiral angle, slotting ratio and groove number present obvious and complex influence on the opening force and leakage rate. This research may provide the reasonable basis for the design of upstream pumping spiral groove mechanical face seals.