Steady-State Analysis of Mechanical Seals With Two Flexibly Mounted Rotors

Abstract

The dynamic behavior of a mechanical face seal with two flexibly mounted rotors is investigated. The equations of motion are derived using linearized rotor dynamic coefficients to model the dynamic behavior of the fluid film. The equations are shown to be linear in the inertial reference with harmonic forcing functions which result from the initial misalignment of the flexible supports. A method for obtaining the steady-state response in the system is derived by transforming the equations of motion into reference frames which rotate with the shafts. The resulting equations contain constant forcing functions and can be readily solved for the magnitude of the steady-state response. The method presented allows a rapid determination of the steady-state misalignment of a seal without resorting to numerical modeling.