A Study of Mechanical Seal Performance of Textured End Face with Compound Grooves and Dimples

In view of the texture of single spiral grooves and single elliptical dimples of mechanical face seal, a novel compound texture pattern combined with spiral grooves and elliptical dimples was proposed. On the basis of establishing the theoretical model of mechanical face seal textured with this texture pattern, the difference of mechanical seal performance textured with the single spiral grooves, the single elliptical dimples and the compound grooves and dimples were compared and studied by the method of numerical simulation, and the flow field characteristics of three textured end faces were analyzed. Under the same working condition, the load carrying force F, the leakage Q, and the film stiffness K were calculated. The effects of texture depth h_p, seal clearance h₀, texture area ratio S_p, rotating speed n and moving ring and pressure ratio p_i/p_o on mechanical seal performance were investigated. The results show that the spiral grooves can greatly improve the load carrying force and film stiffness of mechanical face seal, while the elliptical dimples have a much higher contribution in reducing the leakage. Under the conditions of small texture depth and seal clearance, the texture pattern with compound grooves and dimples can obtain comparatively less leakage, favorable load carrying force and film stiffness.