Influence of Floating Ring Seal Working Condition Parameters on the Dynamic Characteristics of Transient Gas Film

Abstract

Abstract The high requirements for sealing performance in high-speed rotating machinery has led to the design of floating seal with annular spiral groove that offer the advantages of low leakage and extended stability. However, efforts to model the dynamic performance of these floating seal have suffered from the great complexity of the flow field. The present work addresses this issue by establishing a transient Reynolds formulation of a floating seal with annular spiral groove in a rotating coordinate system based on the small perturbation method. In addition, the influence of radial eccentricity and film thickness on the solution divergence and calculation accuracy is calculated. The dynamic stiffness and dynamic damping matrixes are built. Then the variation rules of the dynamic stiffness and damping coefficient of the gas film with structure and working conditions are investigated in detail. The results show that the floating ring seal is more suitable for the service conditions of small film thickness, low pressure, high speed and large eccentricity. Accordingly, the results obtained lay a theoretical foundation for evaluating real-world applications of floating ring seal.