Vacuum Sealing with a Spiral Grooved Gas Dynamic Seal

Abstract

Gas dynamic seals with rectangular spiral grooves are studied theoretically taking the effects of sidewalls of the grooves and the effects of gas compressibility into account, and slip boundary conditions are employed. The results are compared with the existing experimental data and the validity of the theory is confirmed over a wide pressure range except for the extremely low pressures. Suggestions are made regarding the choice of the geometrical dimensions, i.e., aspect ratio, helix angle, clearance parameter and groove width ratio.