A SIMPLIFIED MACRO-THERMO-ELASTIC MODEL FOR A MECHANICAL FACE SEAL IN TRANSIENT OPERATION

Aurelian FATU¹

 Bernard TOURNERIE¹

Traian CICONE²

¹ Laboratoire de Mécanique des Solides, Université de Poitiers, France

² Department of Machine Elements and Tribology, "Politehnica" University of Bucharest, Romania

Abstract. The primary goals of a mechanical face seal (MFS), low leakage and long life require the seal to operate with very thin films between the mating faces. Thus, heat dissipation and its major effects on the (a) viscosity of the sealed fluid (thermo-viscous effect) and on the (b) elastic deformations of the seal rings (thermo-elastic effect) become major concerns. Experiments have shown that these coupled effects are at the origin of seal instabilities. Despite of a large amount of work dedicated to these aspects, the majority of the proposed models have been restricted to only one of these effects. Only a few papers treated the coupled thermo-elastic effect [1 - 4]. All these models are axisymmetric (2-D) and most of them use standard commercial software tools to solve for temperatures and deformations of the rings.
The aim of this paper is to advance a simple but comprehensive thermo-elasto-hydrodynamic (TEHD) model, for MFS operating in transient conditions. This model is also axisymmetric but assumes that temperature varies only axially in the seal rings, as validated experimentally. From this point of view, the present model can be considered a 1-D TEHD model. The key factor in the present model is the coning of the seal interface.
 

Keywords: face seal, micro-thermo-elastic, transient operation