A Comparative Study on the Performance of Typical Types of Bionic Groove Dry Gas Seal based on Bird Wing

A series of bionic grooves based on bird wing, such as cluster spiral groove, multi-array spiral groove and flow-split spiral groove, are introduced to improve the film stiffness and sealing properties of dry gas seal. A theoretical model solved with Finite Difference Method (FMD) is developed to study the static sealing performance, such as film stiffness and leakage rate of these bionic groove dry gas seals. Then, a performance comparative study between the bionic groove dry gas seals and common spiral groove dry gas seal with different groove geometry parameters such as groove depth ratio, spiral angle and micro groove number under different average linear velocity at seal ring face and seal pressure is carried out. The closing force, film thickness and leakage rate of dry gas seals with bionic grooves and common spiral groove are measured experimentally. Results show that cluster spiral groove and multi-array spiral groove dry gas seals have superiority in the film stiffness and stiffness-leakage ratio compared with common spiral groove under the condition of high-speed and low-pressure, while flow-split spiral groove dry gas seal has no obvious advantages of performance. Film stiffness of cluster spiral groove dry gas seal and stiffness-leakage ratio of multi-array spiral groove dry gas are 20% and 50% larger than that of common spiral groove dry gas seal, respectively, which are verified by the experimental results.