Improving mechanical seal reliability with advanced computational engineering tools, part 1: FEA

Abstract

The use of finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to predict the performance of mechanical seals has become well established in recent years. This feature describes the background to the development of FEA with integrated fluid film and tribology model at John Crane, the capabilities of the software and examples of the validation from test work. A second part next month will discuss CFD and a case study solved using both techniques.