Design of an Intelligent Self-Adjusting Lip Seal Based on an SMA Spring

Abstract

The working temperatures of mechanical equipment are continually increasing, leading to rapid deterioration in the service performance of lip seals. Conventional rubber lip seals cannot achieve a balanced sealing performance at both the designed temperature and high working temperature. Intelligent self-adjusting lip seals that can adjust their sealing performance according to the ambient temperature may be an effective solution. In our study, the influence of the radial force of lip seals on sealing performance was investigated combining a theoretical analysis with experimental verification. An intelligent control method for lip seals based on radial force compensation was proposed. An intelligent self-adjusting lip seal equipped with a shape memory alloy structure was designed and fabricated, and its effectiveness in improving sealing performance at high temperature was validated.

Keywords:

• Intelligent
• self-adjusting lip seals
• high temperature
• shape memory alloy
• radial force

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this article was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB2001001) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51575300, 51735006).