Seal Performance Analysis of Hydrostatic Mechanical Seal during Thermal Shock

A theoretical model of fluid lubrication is presented for a hydrostatic mechanical seal by considering the variation of dynamic viscosity to sealed fluid pressure and temperature.Finite difference method is used to get the coupling solution for the generalized Reynolds equation,energy equation,thermal conduction equation.The effects of temperature transient rising of the sealed medium on temperature distributions and performance parameters of such a mechanical seal are studied.The results show that when the sealed medium temperature increases sharply,opening force will increase at first and then decrease to a stable value.Accordingly the leakage will increase suddenly.The temperature profiles of seal rings and fluid film will also increase,but the friction torque falls sharply.All the sealing performance parameters will be stable at last.The more smaller the thermal inertia parameter is,the more rapidly opening force and leakage rate will increase.Friction force is on the contrary.The steady values of parameters vary with the thermal inertia parameters.