Analysis of Friction and Wear Properties of Friction Ring Materials for Friction Rings under Mixed Lubrication

Abstract

Aiming at the problem of mechanical seal failure due to serious wear and tear in operation, the numerical model of the thermal–solid coupling wear of the seal ring is established by taking the friction sub-material as the research object, and the hardness, wear coefficient, and friction coefficient of different soft-ring materials are obtained by a test to verify the accuracy of the numerical model of wear. Additionally, the temperature field and deformation field of the seal ring of different materials are calculated, and the effects of the material parameters, such as elasticity modulus and thermal conductivity, on the temperature, relative deformation, and axial deformation trend are reported. The wear relation of the mechanical seal was optimized, and the correction coefficients of several materials were calculated. The results show the following: the main wear of the seal ring is due to adhesive wear leading to particle shedding and extrusion, adhesive wear causes material transfer, which alters the composition of the worn surface.in turn leading to cratering, which also causes the wear of the seal ring; the friction performance is better when the soft-ring material is graphite (C); the temperature, as well as the deformation, is smaller when the soft-ring material is silicon carbide (SIC); the correction coefficients for the life of SIC are calculated to be 0.23, for C, to be 0.14, and for stainless steel (Ss), to be 0.31, and the corrected equations can more accurately predict the corresponding material. The corrected equation can more accurately predict the service life of the corresponding material.