2019 Volume 64 Issue 9 Pages 571-577
This paper describes gas flow visualization under vibration on dry gas seals. Dry gas seals are widely used for turbo machinery such as compressor, turbo blower and so on because of their high sealing ability. They utilize fluid film generated by hydrodynamic grooves for sealing process gases and separate two seal plates. In the dry gas seals, there is high possibility to be supposed to vibration caused by rotational unbalance or external vibration. Under this background, many researchers have treated concerning about dynamic characteristics on dry gas seals. However, they are mainly focused on spring and damping coefficient. It is important to clarify the gas flow characteristics under vibration for enhancing the sealing ability of dry gas seals. Therefore, in this paper, we tried to visualize the gas flow in dry gas seal with spiral groove. Sinusoidal vibrations have been excited to test dry gas seal and the amount of leakage were measured. Simultaneously, in-situ observations have been done under two frequency conditions using high speed camera and then, PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) analysis was conducted using the obtained visualization movie. Finally, the effect of frequency on gas leakage are clarified considering the gas flow in dry gas seal.
