Effects of stiffness and damping of spring and secondary seal on tracking property of gas face seals

In actual operation of a gas face seal, its stator ring's ability to track its rotating seal ring's axial endplay and angle swing (i. e., its tracking property) is crucial, its excellent tracking property can reduce the influence of external disturbances on the seal stability. Here, a gas face seal assembly was simplified into a spring-damper-mass system. Using the perturbation method based on the linearization, the gas film dynamic stiffness and damping coefficients were solved. Then, the effect laws of stiffness and damping of spring and secondary seal on the tracking property of gas face seal were investigated. Gas face seals had three different end face structures including dynamic pressure one, hydrostatic pressure one and dynamic-hydrostatic pressure hybrid one. Results showed that the three types of seal possess perfect axial and angular tracking properties when stiffness and damping are less than a certain order of magnitude; with increase in stiffness and damping, the tracking property of gas face seal becomes poorer; under the same conditions, the dynamic pressure gas face seal has the best tracking property, followed by the dynamic-hydrostatic pressure hybrid one, and the last is the hydrostatic pressure one. © 2018, Editorial Office of Journal of Vibration and Shock. All right reserved.