Stepped Labyrinth Seal Research Articles

A study on the rotational effect of a stepped labyrinth seal according to the casing type

A study on the rotational effect of a stepped labyrinth seal according to the casing type

Topology optimization of labyrinth seals using interface identification techniques

Labyrinth seals are mechanical devices that reduce the leakage between moving components of rotating machines. They are crucial for determining the performance of these machines and essential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, mathematical optimization algorithms for labyrinth seals are of high interest. This work concerns the topology optimization of labyrinth seals, which is a challenging task because the optimizer must distribute solids at different velocities to properly model the flow in the cavity of the labyrinth seal. Also, the model must not allow the optimizer to close the fluid channel or to leave free-floating islands of solid elements in the final design. Therefore, the interface identification method based on a series of erosion-dilate projection filters is used to model the fluid channel as the interface between the rotor and stator, allowing the representation of different velocities and avoiding the channel closure. The virtual temperature method is employed as a connectivity constraint to avoid free-floating islands of solid material. Still, thin structural members appear in the optimized designs, so geometric constraints are used to impose the minimum length scale on rotor and stator components. The final topology optimization results are labyrinth seals with contorted channels constricted to the minimum allowed gap size (as expected for low Reynolds flows), showing the success of the proposed formulation. The staggered and stepped labyrinth seal configurations are optimized to show the generality of the method.

Numerical study of erosion on labyrinth seals of Francis turbine

Sediment erosion is one of the most challenging problems in hydropower plants in Nepal. The sediments like quartz erode the turbine components like runner blades, labyrinth seals and others. This study has focused on the erosion effects in different labyrinth seals of the Francis turbine. Labyrinth seals are non-contact seals used for minimizing unwanted leaks between stationary and rotating parts. The labyrinth consists of two parts: a static seal connected to the turbine covers and a rotating part connected to the runner. The labyrinth gap is small for a new turbine and so the leakage is low. The leakage grows as the gap widens due to erosion in the seals. This causes a reduction in the efficiency of the turbine. Thus, numerical analysis performed on 2-dimensional straight-through (unilateral and bilateral), stepped, and full-length labyrinth seals of Francis turbine have been covered in this research paper. The numerical models were constructed with a structured grid using ICEM. CFD simulation in OpenFOAM was carried out to understand the flow with sediment particles in different labyrinth seals. The volume eroded was evaluated using the Finnie erosion model. The pressure, velocity profile and volume eroded in labyrinth seals were investigated. The study showed stepped labyrinth seal had a maximum volume eroded on both the stator wall and rotor wall compared to other seals. Similarly, the study revealed that the rotating part of the labyrinth seal is more affected by sediment erosion than the stationary part of the seal. This is due to the high accumulation of sediment particles in the rotor wall of the labyrinth seal.

Experimental Assessment of Correlative Approaches for the Prediction of Leakage Flow through Labyrinth Seals

Simple analytical models can be employed to estimate the leakage mass flow rate from labyrinth seals, resulting in a quick procedure, well suited for the early design process. Different formulas were proposed by many authors during the past decades and most of them employ a carry-over factor and a flow coefficient to predict the mass flow rate across the clearance area. The present work aims to compare the analytical prediction with the results of an experimental campaign. The experimental results were retrieved from a dedicated test rig for both a straight-through and a stepped labyrinth seal. Hence, for each seal, the effect of the clearance size, the Reynolds number and the pressure ratio has been investigated. Starting from the experimental required inputs, six different correlations are considered, with both direct and indirect methods. The results are shown as a function of pressure ratio and clearance gap. Despite some differences in the comparison, and most of the used correlation underestimate the measured mass flow rate, some general trends and guidelines can be highlighted.

Numerical study on the leakage characteristics of a stepped labyrinth seal with mixed honeycomb cell diameters

Numerical study on the leakage characteristics of a stepped labyrinth seal with mixed honeycomb cell diameters

Optimizing the Geometric Parameters of a Stepped Labyrinth Seal to Minimize the Discharge Coefficient

A series of numerical simulations were performed to study the discharge coefficient based on the geometric parameters of a stepped labyrinth seal that sealed the secondary flow path of a gas turbine. In contrast with straight-through seals, stepped labyrinth seals introduce additional geometrical parameters related to the steps. In this study, three shape variables were observed: step height (SH), position, and cavity width (CW). The sensitivity to the leakage flow of the shape variable in the stepped labyrinth seal was analyzed. The mechanism for improving the sealing performance of stepped labyrinth seals was investigated. The results indicated that the stepped labyrinth seal exhibited up to 17.9% higher leakage-suppression performance than the straight labyrinth seal. Seals with large discharge coefficients had a large vena contracta upstream of each tooth structure and a rapidly accelerated axial velocity in the radial direction. We could observe that the discharge coefficient changed according to the flow field in the cavity. The wall shear stress was sensitive to the SH but not to the CW or step position.

Turbulence dissipation of leakage flow in supercritical CO2 labyrinth seals

Supercritical CO2 (S-CO2) leakage through seals significantly reduces the efficiency of turbomachinery. Improving the labyrinth seal structure is potentially the key to the reduction of the leakage flow rate, but its application is greatly limited by the uncertainties of supercritical CO2 turbulent flow inside the turbomachines with irregular chambers. In this work, we numerically investigated the S-CO2 flow field and dissipation rate of turbulence kinetic energy in stepped labyrinth seals. The RANS method and hexahedral structural mesh were employed. The look-up table containing the real gas properties of carbon dioxide was created and imported into the flow solver. The developed numerical method was validated by experiment results and proved its applicability. We have discovered that the fully developed rotating vortices inside each chamber of the turbomachine significantly increase the turbulent dissipation rate and decrease the fluid carried energy, thus reducing the leakage flow rate. With the seal clearance increasing form 0.5 mm–1.3 mm at pressure ratio π = 0.7, the vortices development is gradually limited, causing the decrease of turbulent dissipation rate. The leakage rate is found to be heavily dependent on the distance between the seal tip and step. The increase in this distance from 2 mm to 6 mm results in greater space for the continued development of the vortices within the first chamber, thus the enhancement of the turbulent dissipation rate of fluid. Therefore, we defined a geometry coefficient, (δ-b)/s, and analyzed its effects on turbulent dissipation rate and leakage flow rate. With this geometry coefficient increases from 2.8 to 11.2 at π = 0.7, the maximum turbulent dissipation rate increases from 7.09 × 107 to 1.23 × 108 and the leakage flow rate decreases from 3.98 × 10−2 kg/s to 1.62 × 10−2 kg/s. An improved leakage model characterizing seal geometry, gas properties and compressibility effects was proposed.

Study of dynamic characteristics of stepped labyrinth seals

Study of dynamic characteristics of stepped labyrinth seals

Large Eddy Simulation of Leakage Flow in a Stepped Labyrinth Seal

Large eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes simulation (RANS) of leakage flow in straight-through and stepped labyrinth seals were performed in order to compare their performances in sealing the secondary flow passage of the gas turbine based on the respective discharge coefficients. The results indicate a 17.8% higher leakage prevention performance for the stepped seal relative to that of the straight seal. Further, while the LES predicts an ~7% reduction in the discharge coefficient due to shaft rotation, this effect is underestimated by the RANS. Moreover, the LES correctly predicts a laminarized flow pattern in the clearance, whereas the RANS overestimates the turbulence kinetic energy. In addition, a turbulence kinetic energy spectrum analysis was performed based on the vorticity at selected points in order to identify the flow structure that has a dominant influence on the oscillation of the discharge coefficient. This analysis also enabled identification of the changes in the flow structure due to shaft rotation.

A Study on the Leakage Characteristics of a Stepped Labyrinth Seal with a Ribbed Casing

A new type of stepped seal with a ribbed casing is proposed to efficiently reduce the leakage at the tips of turbine blades. The leakage characteristics of two different types of labyrinth seals (conventional seal vs. ribbed seal) were compared and analyzed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in a wide operating range of pressure ratios and clearances. The analysis showed that the ribbed seal has superior leakage performance to the conventional seal at all clearance sizes. With the same clearance size (S/H = 1.0), the flow function of the ribbed seal was approximately 21.5–42.6% less than that of the conventional seal. Also, different trends of variation in the flow function according to the increase of the clearance were found between the conventional and ribbed seals. The leakage flow inside the labyrinth seal was analyzed to explain the cause of this difference in tendency, and it was confirmed that the added ribs cause collision between the leakage flow and the tooth wall, even with the increase of the clearance. Also, the ribbed seal enables operation at a larger clearance with the same leakage performance when comparing the absolute leakage flow rate of the two seals. In addition, a parametric study on the influence of the rib height and rib inclination angle revealed that the flow function generally decreases as both parameters increase.

Effects of tip clearance, number of teeth, and tooth front angle on the sealing performance of straight and stepped labyrinth seals

In the gas turbine, gaps inevitably exist between the stationary and rotating parts. To improve the performance of gas turbines, tip leakage flow through the gaps must be minimized. The labyrinth seal increases the flow resistance by placing a number of teeth to minimize leakage flow. The labyrinth seal is still adopted in many fields because of its relatively high thermal resistance, simple structure, and wide pressure range. In this paper, the effects of geometric parameters (straight and stepped with solid land, tip clearance, number of teeth, and tooth front angle) on leakage flow were experimentally studied and the seal performance was described using the flow function. Also, flow visualization within the labyrinth seal was conducted using the Schlieren method. The dimensionless tip clearance (C/a) was adjusted from 0.8 to 3.3 (where a is tooth tip width) and the pressure ratio was adjusted from 1.1 to 3.0. The tooth front angle of the stepped seal was 90° and 60°. Results show that the flow function increased as the pressure ratio increased, however it tended to remain constant if the pressure ratio was higher than 2.0. At the same test condition, the flow function of the stepped labyrinth seal was smaller than that of the straight seal for all tested pressure ratios. Also, the seal performance was better for larger number of teeth, smaller tip clearance, and smaller tooth front angle cases. Based on the measured results, a new correlation for the labyrinth seals was suggested.

Study of Dynamic Characteristics of Stepped Labyrinth Seals

Study of Dynamic Characteristics of Stepped Labyrinth Seals

Effect of Clearance and Cavity Geometries on Leakage Performance of a Stepped Labyrinth Seal

This study evaluated the leakage characteristics of a stepped labyrinth seal. Experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis were conducted for a wide range of pressure ratios and clearance sizes, and the effect of the clearance on the leakage characteristics was analyzed by determining the performance of the seal using a dimensionless parameter. It was observed from the analysis that the performance parameter of the seal decreases as the clearance size increases, but it tends to increase when the clearance size exceeds a certain value. In other words, it was revealed that there exists a specific clearance size (Smin) which minimizes the performance parameter of the seal. To identify the cause of this tendency change, a flow analysis was conducted using CFD. It was confirmed that the leakage characteristics of the stepped seal are affected by the size of the cavity, which is the space between the teeth. Therefore, a parametric study was conducted on the design parameters related to the cavity size (tooth height and pitch). The results show that the performance parameter decreases as the tooth height and pitch decreases. Moreover, Smin increases as the tooth height increases and the pitch decreases.

Conceptual Flutter Analysis of Stepped Labyrinth Seals

Abstract A simple nondimensional model to describe the flutter onset of two-fin straight labyrinth seals (Corral and Vega, 2018, “Conceptual Flutter Analysis of Labyrinth Seals Using Analytical Models—Part I: Theoretical Background,” ASME J. Turbomach., 140(10), p. 121006) is extended to stepped seals. The effect of the axial displacement of the seal is analyzed first in isolation. It is shown that this fundamental mode is always stable. In a second step, the combination of axial and torsion displacements is used to determine the damping of modes with arbitrary torsion centers. It is concluded that the classical Abbot's criterion stating that seals supported on the low-pressure side of the seal are stable provided that natural frequency of the mode is greater than the acoustic frequency breaks down under certain conditions. An analytical expression for the nondimensional work-per-cycle is derived and new nondimensional parameters controlling the seal stability identified. It is finally concluded that the stability of stepped seals can be assimilated to that of a straight through seal if the appropriate distance of the torsion center to the seal is chosen.

Numerical research on sealing performance of high speed and high pressure centrifugal compressor seal

In this paper, two seal schemes of stepped labyrinth seal and straight through-hole seal are selected for the shaft end seal of S-CO2 centrifugal compressor with the output of 100kW. The full three-dimensional CFD numerical simulation method is adopted to analyze and compare the sealing characteristics of two S-CO2 seals in S-CO2 centrifugal compressor under different outlet back pressures and sealing gaps. The results show that the leakage flow rate of S-CO2 stepped labyrinth seal and through-hole seal increases with the decrease of back pressure. The leakage flow rate of the stepped labyrinth seal and the through-hole seal reaches the corresponding critical value when the back pressure is 1.0 MPa and 3.0 MPa respectively. The critical leakage flow rate of the stepped labyrinth seal and the through-hole seal under the condition of 0.1 mm sealing gap is 0.158 kg/s and 0.128 kg/s respectively. Compared to the through-hole seal, the stepped labyrinth seal can withstand greater pressure differentials at the same sealing gap and has superior S-CO2 sealing performance.

Experimental Studies of Honeycomb Seals with Wavy Ridges on the Rotor

During steam turbine operation in transient modes, contact in labyrinth seals is possible. To avoid such contact in the regular stepped labyrinth seals, specialists of the Ural Turbine Works upgraded the end seals during major repairs in several T-250/300-23.5 type turbines of PAO Mosenergo: the regular seals on the rotor were replaced by straight-flow honeycomb seals with wavy ridges. After this upgrading, there were a reduction of air suctions through the end seals of low-pressure cylinder, the normalization of the ejector operation, and oil watering reducing. However, by these indirect indices, it is impossible to evaluate the actual change of leakages through upgraded seals. Therefore, the comparative experimental studies of flow and dynamic characteristics of the straight-flow seals with classic straight and wavy ridges were implemented. According to the investigation results, the flow characteristics of all studied models of straight-flow seals during transition from classical straight ridges to wavy ones deteriorated. The measurements of nonconservative components of the force in the seal models also revealed a deterioration of dynamic characteristics of the models of straight-flow seals during transition from straight ridges to wavy ones. In the end seals, increasing the nonconservative forces capable to cause a self-excited vibration of the shafting of the steam-turbine plant (STP) does not pose a threat owing to their low magnitude. However, in diaphragm seals, especially in the high-pressure section of STP to the supercritical steam parameters, using new honeycomb straight-flow seals with wavy ridges requires special caution, since these forces reach the highest values in the region of high pressures and are capable, in combination with the overbandage forces and forces arising in the oil layer of bearings, to cause low-frequency self-excited vibrations of shaftings. Taking into account that the level of nonconservative forces in the regular stepped seals is by 20% less than in the straight-flow seals, the transition to the straight-flow honeycomb seals with wavy ridges on the rotor in the diaphragm seals appears inappropriate.

Experimental investigation of diverging stepped magnetic fluid seals with large sealing gap

To improve the pressure capacity of the magnetic fluid seal with a large sealing gap, a new type of stepped magnetic fluid seals was firstly proposed based on magnetic fluid seal with multiple magnetic sources or stepped labyrinth seals. A universal magnetic fluid seal with two permanent magnets and a diverging stepped magnetic fluid seal have been investigated by experimental methods. The experimental results of the both sealing structures have been compared and analyzed. The results indicate that the diverging stepped magnetic fluid seal shows good performance compared to the universal magnetic fluid seal without stepping structure and it is an effective method to improve magnetic fluid sealing capacity with a large gap.

Rounded Fin Edge and Step Position Effects on Discharge Coefficient in Rotating Labyrinth Seals

The design of modern aircrafts propulsion systems is strongly influenced by the important objective of environmental impact reduction. Through a great number of researches carried out in the last decades, significant improvements have been obtained in terms of lower fuel consumption and pollutant emission. Experimental tests are a necessary step to achieve new solutions that are more efficient than the current designs, even if during the preliminary design phase, a valid alternative to expensive experimental tests is the implementation of numerical models. The processing power of modern computers allows indeed the simulation of more complex and detailed phenomena than the past years. The present work focuses on the implementation of a numerical model for rotating stepped labyrinth seals installed in low-pressure turbines. These components are widely employed in sealing turbomachinery to reduce the leakage flow between rotating components. The numerical simulations were performed by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology, focusing on the leakage performances at different rotating speeds and inlet preswirl ratios. Investigations on velocity profiles into seal cavities were also carried out. To begin with, a smooth labyrinth seal model was validated by using the experimental data found in the literature. The numerical simulations were extended to the honeycomb labyrinth seals, with the validation performed on the velocity profiles. Then, the effects of two geometrical parameters, the rounded fin tip leading edge, and the step position were numerically investigated for both smooth and honeycomb labyrinth seals. The obtained results are generally in good agreement with the experimental data. The main effect found when the fin tip leading edge was rounded was a large increase in leakage flow, while the step position contribution to the flow path behavior is nonmonotone.

Dimensional analysis on resistance characteristics of labyrinth seals

Experimental investigation of stepped and straight-through labyrinth seals was designed to study the sealing performance of two different typical labyrinth seals. In order to facilitate dimensional analysis on the flow resistance characteristics of labyrinth seals, the variable cross-section of the flow channels are considered as constant cross-section flow. The mechanical energy loss of flow caused by throttle turbulence intensity is considered as caused by friction along the way. The friction coefficient of stepped labyrinth seals is bigger than that of straight-through labyrinth seals by more than 40% for the same Reynolds number and the ratio of equivalent diameter and the seal length. The expression of friction coefficient f and fRe are obtained from experimental data. The verifications indicate that the expressions are highly accurate. The contribution to the total pressure drop of each tooth cavity gradually becomes less along the flow direction.

CFD Study on Stepped and Drum Balance Labyrinth Seal

The stability of rotors in turbomachines is affected by the labyrinth seal where driving forces are generated. Recent research results have shown that the preswirl has a significant influence on the rotordynamic characteristics of the straight labyrinth seal including both tooth-on-stator and tooth-on-rotor configurations. However, modern turbomachines require higher and higher pressure drop for the seal so that the eye seal is usually designed as stepped labyrinth, whereas the balance drum usually employs a tooth-interlocking labyrinth and a larger number of teeth. Both designs could generate greater forces on the rotor than the straight labyrinth seal. Therefore, it is necessary to further study the influence of preswirl on stepped and tooth-interlocking labyrinth seals. This article employed 3D calculational fluid dynamics (CFD) to solve the flow in those seals. Then the rotordynamic coefficients of the two seals at different preswirl rates were calculated based on the CFD results. The results were compared with test data and bulk flow results. A rotor stability analysis was conducted considering the balance drum seal with the coefficients predicted by the numerical method.