Experimental Study on the Static and Dynamic Characteristics of Screw Grooved Seals

Abstract

Screw grooved annular seals are used in many heavy duty pumps such as boiler feed pumps. These annular seals have a significant effect on rotordynamic characteristics of the pumps. Studies on the dynamic characteristics of plain and circumferentially grooved annular seals have been published by many researchers. However, published works on screw grooved seals are few, and pump designers have not fully recognized the basic characteristics of screw grooved seals. Extensive experimental studies have been conducted for determining the basic characteristics of screw grooved seals. The leakage characteristics, load capacity, and dynamic characteristics for rotordynamic analysis were determined by using a specially designed test facility and test method. The test results were compared to the results of plain seals [3] and the basic differences were extracted for effective application of screw grooved seals.