The influence of 3-DOF film thickness disturbance on transient performance of typical spiral groove dry gas seals

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence rule and mechanism of three degrees of freedom film thickness disturbance on the transient performance of spiral groove, upstream pumping spiral groove dry gas seal (UP-SDGS) and double-row spiral groove dry gas seal (DR-SDGS). Design/methodology/approach The transient performance of spiral groove, UP-SDGS and DR-SDGS are obtained by solving the transient Reynolds equation under different axial and angular disturbance coefficients. The transient and steady performance of the above-mentioned DGSs are compared and analyzed. Findings The film thickness disturbance has a remarkable impact on the sealing performance of DGS with different structures and the calculation deviations of the leakage rate of the UP-DGS will increase significantly if the film thickness disturbance is ignored. The axial and angular disturbance jointly affect the film thickness distribution of DGS, but there is no significant interaction between them on the transient sealing performance. Originality/value The influence mechanism of axial disturbance and angular disturbance on the transient performance of typical SDGSs behavior has been explained by theory. Considering small and large disturbance, the interaction between axial disturbance and angular disturbance on the transient performance have been studied.

Predictions of the thermo elastic deformation of dry gas seal rings in the hydrodynamic lubrication regime

Dry gas seals represent a significant advancement in turbo machinery due to their ability to handle high pressures and speeds without the use of external sealing fluids, such as oil or water, thus reducing contamination and increasing reliability. Despite their widespread use, internal working mechanisms are not fully understood to date, in particular regarding fluid film thickness prediction, which is an essential component of the seal design. The axial deflection of the rotating and stationary rings in a dry gas seal affects the development of the fluid film formed between the ring faces of the seal, influencing the performance of the seal during its operation, as well as leakage of the seal when it is at rest. The hydrodynamic and hydrostatic pressure fields of the fluid film, together with temperature gradients in the rings, induce axial deflection of these components. This in turn modifies the pressure field developed in the film. This paper focuses on establishing a methodology to couple the deformation field and the dynamic behavior of the fluid film (pressure and temperature fields) through numerical computations. Analytical relationships are employed to obtain the thermo-elastic deflection of the seal rings in the axial direction and this distortion is used in the numerical methodology to accelerate the prediction of the seal behavior. The coupled seal ring-fluid film dynamic system with 11° and 15° spiral angle is stable because the axial deflection calculated from numerical analysis produces a converging radial taper in the direction of the flow (producing a net opening force). An important result of this work is that the predicted magnitude of the axial deflection (as a result of pressure and temperature effects) under thermal and pressure loads on the stationary and rotating rings is smaller but of the same order of magnitude as the fluid film thickness.

Research on the Operational Modal Prediction of Dry Gas Seal System Based on Response Surface Method

The cross power spectrum function is used to realize the operational modal analysis and identification of the dry gas seal device system through the multi-reference point least squares complex frequency domain method. The steady state diagram and mathematical indicators MAC, MPD, MPC, MOV and MIF are used to verify the modal results. At the same time, based on the response surface method, with two different operating conditions of medium pressure and rotating speed, modal direction and modal order as the response surface variables, a time-varying modal recognition model is established. Through the Full Factorial experiment design, Box-Behnken experiment design and Central Composite experiment design, the suitable variable sample points are formed. A complete quadratic polynomial response surface model of the system operational modal parameters is established. The complex correlation coefficient, the modified complex correlation coefficient and the root mean square error are used to verify the effectiveness of the response surface model. It provides new method and technical support for realizing time-varying modal identification in this paper.

Design and Analysis of Cooling Structure for Dry Gas Seal Chamber of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Turbine Shaft End

Dry gas seal is a kind of non-contact mechanical seal that offers lower leakage and longer operating life comparing to conventional seals. Due to its low leakage rate, a dry gas seal is used to control the leakage flow through the clearance between the stationary and rotational components of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (SCO2) turbomachinery, especially at the shaft end of the SCO2 compressor and turbine. However, the high inlet temperature of the SCO2 turbine makes the SCO2 dry gas seal face a severe operation condition. The chamber temperature, cooling effects, and the deformation of the rotating ring of a newly designed external flush structure are numerically investigated using the fluid-thermal-solid coupling approach in this paper. Within the same cooling flow rate, the current study analyzed the effect of six external flush cooling arrangements on these parameters. The obtained results demonstrate that the designed tangential admission cooling structure has the best cooling performance which can decrease the temperature by 400K in the film region and 440K in the chamber region. In addition, the deformation of the rotating ring decreases by 50% under this cooling structure by comparing the no cooling design. The present work provides the reference for the chamber cooling structure design of the SCO2 dry gas seal.