Spiral Groove Parametric Study of Solid Particles Deposition Characteristics in Sealing Lubrication Film

Abstract

In order to study the effect of groove parameters on solid particles’ deposition in mechanical face seal lubrication film, a multi-phase flow calculation model for the sealing micro-gap lubricating film was established based on the Laminar model, mixture multi-phase flow model, Zwart–Gerber–Belamri cavitation model, and DPM model in Fluent, and a numerical simulation of the effect of groove parameters is presented. The results show that, with the increase of groove depth, the circumferential sedimentary zone in the dam area decreases or even disappears, and the groove area becomes the main sedimentary part; the particle deposition rate decreases first and then increases with the increase of groove depth and spiral angle. The influence of groove depth on the deposition rate at low speed is more significant than that at high speed. The increase of deposition rate caused by a spiral angle that is too large is greater than that caused by a spiral angle that is too small. The optimal groove depth and spiral angle are around 6 µm and 18°, respectively; when the rotating speed is 1000 rpm, the deposition rate increases obviously with the increase of the groove diameter ratio; meanwhile, when the rotating speed increases to more than 2000 rpm, the deposition rate increases first and then decreases with the increase of the groove diameter ratio. When the groove diameter ratio is about 0.5, the deposition rate is the largest. For example, when the rotating speed is 2000 rpm, the deposition rate of the groove diameter ratio, 0.5, is about 200% higher than that of groove diameter ratio, 0.2. The lower the speed, the more sensitive the deposition rate is to the groove diameter ratio. The sensitivity at 1000 rpm is 14 times that at 5000 rpm. The deposition rate increases with the increase of the groove width ratio. The higher the rotating speed, the smaller the rate of deposition rate increase. However, when the rotating speed is 5000 rpm and the groove width ratio is higher than 0.7, the deposition rate increases sharply.

Keywords

• mechanical face seal
• lubrication film
• deposition rate
• groove parameters