Simulation of Rotating Seal Ring

Mechanical seals are simply a means of controlling leakage of a flow process
compare to other types of seals that is less capable of performing the task adequately. In
order to improve the efficiency of mechanical seals, the first step is to understand what
is happening inside the system. It is impossible to achieve that understanding from
laboratory testing, since such tests provide only the temperatures of the fluid at the inlet
and outlet ports of the system. The purpose of this project is to understand what is the
behavior of the seal rings inside the system where it will involve various types of
internal flow patterns and heat distribution inside the seal chamber. In order to achieve
the objective, computational simulation technique is useful to simulate the mechanical
seal. The software used for the analyses is ANSYS. Throughout the simulation process,
various types of operating conditions and material of the mechanical seal was
considered. The scope of this research is focus on the parameters, materials and spring
mechanism that will affect the performance of rotating ring in the seal chamber. The
operating condition can be varied easily to understand the behavior of the seal ring. In
conclusion, design changes of mechanical seal are vital to improve the performance, and
the first step in moving forward with the improvements is the understanding of the
behavior of the seal rings. The resulting shear stresses have been correlated to the
rotational speed, separating gap between the seal rings as well as viscosity of lubricant in
the separating gap.