INVESTIGATION ON THE APPLICATION OF THE BOUNDARY ELEMENT METHOD TO THE SPILL GROOVED THRUST BEARING

An application of the boundary element method (BEM) is presented to calculate the behaviors of a spiral grooved thrust bearing (SGTB). The basic reason is that the SGTB has very complex boundary conditions that can hinder the effective or sufficient applications of the finite difference method (FDM) and the finite element method (FEM), despite some existing work based on the FDM and the FEM. In other to apply the BEM, the pressure control equation, i. e., Reynolds' equation, is first transformed into Laplace's and Poisson's form of the equations. Discretization of the SGTB with a set of boundary elements is thus explained in detail, which also includes the handling of boundary conditions. The Archimedean SGTB is chosen as an example of the application Of BEM, and the relationship between the behaviors and structure parameters of the bearing are found and discussed through this calculation. The obtained results lay a solid foundation for a further work of the design of the SGTB.

An Improved Design of Spiral Groove Mechanical Seal

The coupling effect among the flow of fluid film, the frictional heat of fluid film and the thermal deformation of sealing rings is inherent in mechanical seals. The frictional heat transfer analysis was carded out to optimize the geometrical parameters of the sealing rings, such as the length, the inner radius and the outer radius. The geometrical parameters of spiral grooves, such as the spiral angle, the end radius, the groove depth, the ratio of the groove width to the weir width and the number of the grooves, were optimized by regarding the maximum bearing force of fluid film as the optimization objective with the coupling effect considered. The depth of spiral groove was designed to gradually increase from the end radius of spiral groove to the outer radius of end face in order to decrease the weakening effect of thermal deformation on the hydrodynamic effect of spiral grooves. The end faces of sealing rings were machined to form a divergent gap at inner radius, and a parallel gap will form to reduce the leakage rate when the thermal deformation takes place. The improved spiral groove mechanical seal possesses good heat transfer performance and sealing ability.

Leakage and Stiffness Characteristics of Bionic Cluster Spiral Groove Dry Gas Seal

Spiral groove dry gas seal(S?DGS), the most widely used DGS in the world, encounters the problem of high leakage rate and inferior film stability when used in high?speed machinery equipment, which could not be well solved by optimization of geometrical parameters and molded line of spiral groove. A new type of bionic cluster spiral groove DGS(CS?DGS) is proved to have superior film stability than S?DGS at the condition of high?speed and low?pressure numerically. A bionic CS?DGS is experimentally investigated and compared with common S?DGS in order to provide evidence for theoretical study. The film thickness and leakage rate of both bionic spiral groove and common spiral groove DGS are measured and compared with each other and with theoretical values under different closing force at the condition of static pressure, high?speed and low?pressure, and the film stiffness and stiffness?leakage ratio of these two face seals are derived by the relationship between closing force and film thickness at the steady state. Experimental results agree well with the theory that the leakage and stiffness of bionic CS?DGS are superior to that of common S?DGS under the condition of high?speed and low?pressure, with the decreasing amplitude of 20% to 40% and the growth amplitude of 20%, respectively. The opening performance and stiffness characteristics of bionic CS?DGS are inferior to that of common S?DGS when rotation speed equals to 0 r/min. The proposed research provides a new method to measure the axis film stiffness of DGS, and validates the superior performance of bionic CS?DGS at the condition of high?speed and low?pressure experimentally.

Influence Analysis of Secondary O-ring Seals in Dynamic Behavior of Spiral Groove Gas Face Seals

The current research on secondary O-ring seals used in mechanical seals has begun to focus on their dynamic properties. However, detailed analysis of the dynamic properties of O-ring seals in spiral groove gas face seals is lacking. In particular a transient study and a difference analysis of steady-state and transient performance are imperative. In this paper, a case study is performed to gauge the effect of secondary O-ring seals on the dynamic behavior（steady-state performance and transient performance） of face seals. A numerical finite element method（FEM） model is developed for the dynamic analysis of spiral groove gas face seals with a flexibly mounted stator in the axial and angular modes. The rotor tilt angle, static stator tilt angle and O-ring damping are selected to investigate the effect of O-ring seals on face seals during stable running operation. The results show that the angular factor can be ignored to save time in the simulation under small damping or undamped conditions. However, large O-ring damping has an enormous effect on the angular phase difference of mated rings, affecting the steady-state performance of face seals and largely increasing the possibility of face contact that reduces the service life of face seals. A pressure drop fluctuation is carried out to analyze the effect of O-ring seals on the transient performance of face seals. The results show that face seals could remain stable without support stiffness and O-ring damping during normal stable operation but may enter a large-leakage state when confronting instantaneous fluctuations. The oscillation-amplitude shortening effect of O-ring damping on the axial mode is much greater than that on the angular modes and O-ring damping prefers to cater for axial motion at the cost of angular motion. This research proposes a detailed dynamic-property study of O-ring seals in spiral groove gas face seals, to assist in the design of face seals.

Dynamic Coupling Correlation of Gas Film in Dry Gas Seal with Spiral Groove

In working state, the dynamic performance of dry gas seal, generated by the rotating end face with spiral grooves, is determined by the open force of gas film and leakage flow rate. Generally, the open force and the leakage flow rate can be obtained by finite element method, computational fluid dynamics method and experimental measurement method. However, it will take much time to carry out the above measurements and calculations. In this paper, the approximate model of parallel grooves based on the narrow groove theory is used to establish the dynamic equations of the gas film for the purpose of obtaining the dynamic parameters of gas film. The nonlinear differential equations of gas film model are solved by Runge-Kutta method and shooting method. The numerical values of the pressure profiles, leakage flux and opening force on the seal surface are integrated, and then compared to experimental data for the reliability of the numerical simulation. The results show that the numerical simulation curves are in good agreement with experimental values. Furthermore, the opening force and the leakage flux are proved to be strongly correlated with the operating parameters. Then, the function-coupling method is introduced to analyze the numerical results to obtain the correlation formulae of the opening force and leakage flux respectively with the operating parameters, i.e., the inlet pressure and the rotating speed. This study intends to provide an effective way to predict the aerodynamic performance for designing and optimizing the groove styles in dry gas seal rapidly and accurately.

Dynamic Characteristics of High-speed Water-Lubricated Spiral Groove Thrust Bearing Based on Turbulent Cavitating Flow Lubrication Model

The water-lubricated bearings are usually the state of turbulent cavitating flow under high-speed conditions. And the distribution of cavitation bubbles and the interface effect between the two phases have not been included in previous studies on high-speed water-lubricated bearings. In order to study the influence of interface effect and cavitation bubble distribution on the dynamic characteristics of high-speed water-lubricated spiral groove thrust bearings(SGTB).A turbulent cavitating flow lubrication model based on two-phase fluid and population balance equation of bubbles was established in this paper. Stiffness and the damping coefficients of the SGTB were calculated using the perturbation pressure equations. An experimental apparatus was developed to verify the theoretical model. Simulating and experimental results show that the small-sized bubbles tend to generate in the turbulent cavitating flow when at a high rotary speed, and the bubbles mainly locate at the edges of the spiral groove. The simulating results also show that the direct stiffness coefficients are increased due to cavitation effect, and cross stiffness coefficients and damping coefficients are hardly affected by the cavitation effect. Turbulent effect on the dynamic characteristics of SGTB is much stronger than the cavitating effect.

Active Profiling and Polishing Model and Validation Based on Rotor Spiral Groove

When a spiral groove is formed using superplastic molding, precision casting, additive manufacturing, or other non?mechanical processing technology, it is diffcult to meet the molding precision required for direct use, and the surface quality and accuracy of the shape need to be improved through a finishing process. In view of the poor reachability of the current tool?based polishing process, a tool?less polishing method using free?abrasive grains for complex spiral grooves is proposed. With this method, by controlling the movement of the workpiece, the design basis and relative motion of the abrasive particles along a helical path remain consistent, resulting in a better polishing profile. A spiral groove of a revolving body is taken as the research object; the influence of the installation method and the position of the parts, as well as the effect of the rotational speed of the abrasive ball on its relative motion along a helical trajectory, are studied, and the polishing cutting process of an abrasive ball is reasonably simplified. A consistent math?ematical model of the trajectory of an abrasive ball relative to the design helix is constructed. The grooved drum parts are verified through a polishing experiment. The spiral groove of the revolving body is modified and polished. Experiments show that the process not only corrects the shape a spiral groove error, but also reduces the surface roughness of a spiral groove. This study provides a theoretical basis for achieving free?abrasive, tool?free polishing.

Numerical Simulation and Experimental Research on Passive Hydrodynamic Bearing in a Blood Pump

The current research of hydrodynamic bearing in blood pump mainly focuses on the bearing structure design.Compared with the typical plane slider bearing and Rayleigh step bearing,spiral groove bearing has excellent performance in load-carrying capacity.However,the load-carrying capacity would decrease significantly with increasing flow rate in conventional designs.In this paper,the special treatment is made to the upper spiral groove bearing to make sure that both the circulatory flowing and load-carrying capacity are high.Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) models in the space between rotor and shaft are developed by using FLUENT software.Effects of groove number,film height and groove depth on load-carrying capacity of the spiral groove bearings are investigated by orthogonal experiment design.The experimental results show that film height is the most remarkable factor to the load-carrying capacity.The variation tendency of load-carrying capacity reveals that the best combination of geometry is the one with groove number of 8,film height 0.03 mm and groove depth 0.08 mm.The velocity and pressure distributions in spiral groove bearings are also analyzed,and the analysis result shows that the distributions are in conformity with the design of the blood pump based on the principle of hydrodynamic bearing.The displacement of the rotor with the best combination parameters is tested by using laser displacement sensors,the testing result shows that the suspending performance is satisfactory both in axial and radial directions.This research proposes a bearing design method which has sufficient load-carrying capacity to support rotor as an effective passive hydrodynamic bearing.