A Study on the Friction and Wear Characteristics of Contact Sealing Units for a Small Hydro-power Turbine Under Various Rubbing Conditions

Abstract

In this paper, the friction and wear characteristics of contact type sealing unit far a water turbine have been presented. The sealing unit for a small hydropower generation is to stop a leakage of circulating water from an outside of an impeller to an inside of a rolling bearing. The friction heating between a seal ring and a seal seat may radically increase a surface temperature in which increase a power loss and wear on the rubbing surface. The surface wear strongly affect to the seal life of a mechanical face seal. In this study, the hardness of a stainless steel in which is a heat-treated is 892.8 in Victors hardness and the hardness of silicone carbide of SiC is 714.1 in Victors hardness. The surface hardness of a heat-treated stainless steel is 25% high compared with that of a ceramic material of SiC. The contact modes of rubbing surfaces are a dry friction, a water film friction and a mixed friction that is contaminated by a dust, silt, and moistures, etc. These two factors of a contact rubbing modes and a material property are very important parameters on the tribological performance such as a friction and wear between a seal ring and a seal seat in primary sealing unit. The experimental result shows that the surface hardness of a seal material is very important on the friction coefficient and a wear volume. Thus, the results recommend higher hardness of a seal material, which may reduce a friction loss and increase a wear life of primary seal components.