Study on hydrostatic gas lubricated non-contacting mechanical seal

The principle and characteristics of hydrostatic gas lubricated non-contacting mechanical seal （HSGLNMS） are introduced. The flow field of the gas film is established by numerical analysis of end faces of HSGLNMS. The distribution of gas film pressure and seal performance parameters inclu- ding opening force and leakage are obtained. Influence of operating parameters and sealing configu- ration on the sealing performance is studied. HSGLNMS has been designed and manufactured. Its working film thickness and leakage are measured to verify the theoretical analysis. The investigation results show that HSGLNMS demonstrates good speed adaptability, which means that the seal runs successfully with both low and high speed, showing excellent performance. The seal can be regula- ted and controlled online ; the opening force will not be raised greatly with the increasing of the num- ber of throttle orifices, but the leakage of seal increases apparently ; the uniform pressure groove im- proves the sealing performance, for example, opening force and stiffness are raised obviously. While leakage is reduced. Finally, the theoretical analysis is verified by experiment.

Deformation transition of intact coal induced by gas injection

Gas migration in coal bed is a multiple-physical process, of which not only includes gas desorption/diffusion through coal matrix and gas Darcy flow through the cleat system, but also results in deformation of solid coal. Especially for enhanced coal bed methane(ECBM) and CO2 capture and sequestration(CCS), gas injection is mainly controlled by the gas diffusivity in the coal matrix and coal permeability.Although the relevant coal permeability models have been frequently developed, how the dual-porosity system of coal affects gas adsorption/diffusion is still poorly understood. In this paper, a series of experiments were carried out in order to investigate deformation evolution of intact coal subjected to hydrostatic pressure of different gases(including pure H2, N2 and CO2) under isotherm injection. In the testing process, the coal strain and injected gas pressure were measured simultaneously. The results show that the pressure of non-adsorptive helium remained unchanged throughout the isothermal injection process, in which the volumetric strain of the coal shrinked firstly and maintained unchanged at lower isobaric pressure. With the injected pressure increasing, the coal volume underwent a transition from shrinking to recovery(still less than initial volume of the coal). In contrast, N2 injection caused the coal to shrink firstly and then recover with decreasing gas pressure. The recovery volume was larger than the initial volume due to adsorption-induced swelling. For the case of CO2 injection, although the stronger adsorption effect could result in swelling of the solid coal, the presence of higher gas pressure appears to contribute the swelling coal to shrink. These results indicate that the evolution of coal deformation is time dependent throughout the migration of injected gas. From the mechanical characteristics of poroelastical materials, distribution of pore pressure within the coal is to vary with the gas injection,during which the pore pressure in the cleats will rapidly increase, in contrast, the pore pressure in the matrix will hysteretically elevate. Such a difference on changes of pore pressure between the cleats and the matrix will contribute to the shrinkage of the matrix as a result of initially greater effective stress.Besides, both gas-adsorption-induced swelling and decreasing effective stress also control the coal deformation transition. This work gives us an insight into investigation on influence of effective stress on coal-gas interaction.