TEHD Lubrication of Mechanical Face Seals in Stable Tracking Mode: Part 2—Parametric Study

Abstract

In this paper, the influence of the design and operating parameters on the TEHD behavior of Mechanical Face Seals (MFS), in steady dynamic tracking mode, is analyzed for two different types of applications. First, an extensive parametric analysis of a typical MFS with very low leakage is presented. Then, the influence of rotational speed, sealed fluid temperature and pressure, rings materials, shape, waviness and misalignment of the rotor, are successively examined. The use of an original dimensionless parametric analysis leads to a very simple and overall description of the results. It is shown that ignoring the thermoelastic distortions of the rings could be misleading as far as the evaluation of MFS performance is concerned. In the final part, a hydrostatic MFS with a very large gap and flow rate is studied. The increase of the rotational speed induces a progressively turbulent radial flow. In this case, it is shown that neither thermal effects nor fluid flow regime significantly affect seal behavior.