Experimental investigation on frictional property of mechanical seals with varying dimple diameter along the radial face

Chenbo Ma,Bo Yu,Weifeng Gu,Qiaoan Tu,Jianjun Sun

doi:10.1177/1687814016664837

Abstract

To study frictional property of mechanical seals when distributing dimples with varying parameters along the radial face, friction experiments, including seal faces with varying dimple diameter in various types, invariable dimple diameter, and without dimples, were carried out on end-face tester under different loads and rotation speeds. The results show that the introduction of dimples on seal face does reduce friction coefficient efficiently, but its anti-friction effect is closely related to the arrangement manner of dimple diameter and the operation condition. The type with increasing dimple diameters along the radial face from the inner to the outer diameter should be more suitable for the design of seal faces for its smaller friction coefficient when comparing with the type with optimum invariable dimple diameter. On the other hand, the operation condition, including loads and rotation speeds, must be taken into account to determine how to increase the dimple diameter along the radial face from the inner to the outer diameter. The results could be a good start for further theoretical study to search for the optimum varying dimple parameters of mechanical seals.

Highlights

Mechanical seals with dimples are defined as processed micron-sized dimples with a certain shape and distribution on seal faces, whose original model was set up by Etsion and Burstein[1] in 1996
The frictional property of the seal faces with invariable dimple diameter was studied first
It is a pretty exciting result which shows that an appropriate type with varying dimple diameter along the radial face, in the way that increasing dimple diameter from the inner to the outer diameter in this study, should be more suitable for the seal faces than the type with invariable dimple diameter to reduce friction

Summary

Introduction

Mechanical seals with dimples are defined as processed micron-sized dimples with a certain shape and distribution on seal faces, whose original model was set up by Etsion and Burstein[1] in 1996. Bai et al.[13,14] proposed a new type of mechanical seal whose faces were processed with directional elliptic-shape dimples in the radial direction and carried out the research of influence of the parameters including incline angle, depth and area density of the dimple, longer-shorter axis ratio of elliptic section on sealing performance under various velocities, seal pressures, and gaps based on theoretical analysis and experimental research. The results showed that the varying dimple density, lower dimple density in the middle and higher dimple density at both ends of the stoke, could get a better frictional performance than the invariable dimple density They noted that the variation should be in an appropriate range under different conditions. The preliminary results showed a better anti-friction effect of seal faces with increasing pore diameter along the radial face from the inner to the outer diameter under various loads and rotation speeds, and the mechanism was discussed

Experimental procedures

Results and discussion

Conclusion