Study on the Service Performance of a Two-Stage Floating-Ring Isolation Seal for a High-Speed Turbopump with a Cryogenic Medium

Abstract

The reliability and stability of the seal at the fuel-supply end of a rocket-engine turbopump are important factors in determining safety. Conventional single-stage floating rings used for the isolation-sealing of cryogenic media are highly susceptible to operational instability during startup and shutdown, which places demands on the seals’ structure, size, and material properties. In this study, a two-stage floating-ring isolation seal with a non-slotted main sealing surface was designed using a tangential air-intake mode. Based on the full-size three-dimensional finite-volume model, the leakage characteristics of the floating ring during operation were calculated, taking into account the effect of the “inlet effect” on the seal’s performance. Combining the temperature and pressure distributions of the sealing system under cryogenic operating conditions, calculated using a numerical simulation, a reliability analysis of various inlet directions and two kinds of floating-ring schemes was carried out on a self-constructed service-performance test bench. The results indicate that the main wear location of the non-slotted floating ring occurs on the auxiliary sealing surface, with stable working performance. When the inlet direction and spindle-rotation direction are the same, this is more conducive to ensuring the stability of seal performance in practical applications. The results of the current research are instructive for designing floating-ring isolation seals for turbine pumps.