A New Ultra-Precision Grinding Method for Manufacturing the Wavy-Tilt-Dam Mechanical Face Seals

Abstract

This article reports a new ultra-precision grinding method for manufacturing wavy-tilt-dam mechanical face seals. It uses a horizontal rotary table, a horizontal swing table, and a vertical linear axis to perform micro-infeed grinding with a slightly inclined cup wheel using line contact kinematics at constant wheel depth of cut. The rotation motion of the rotary table, swing motion of the swing table, and reciprocating motion of the linear axis were numerically controlled so that the grinding contact arc between the cup wheel and the seal ring was a highly accurate approximation of the curves on the wavy-tilted surface bounded by its inner and outer peripheries and the trajectory of the contact arc formed the wavy-tilted surface. The sealing dam was generated when the rotary table rotated about the rotational axis and the swing table was locked in a position where the two end points of the grinding contact arc had the same height. This was expected to be an efficient method to manufacture wavy-tilt-dam mechanical seal faces with extremely high form accuracy and low surface roughness.