Development of High Pressure–Velocity Contacting Plain Face Seals for Sealing Water

Abstract

Conventional contacting plain face seals develop severe wear, heat checking, or leakage problems in high pressure–velocity water sealing applications such as in boiler feedwater pumps, boiler circulation pumps, and reactor coolant pumps. Through careful control of seal face distortions with appropriate seal design and face materials, contacting plain face seals can be used in such demanding applications. High seal reliability can be achieved even when subjected to changing pressure and speed operation cycles. Key design features for a successful operation are discussed and the usefulness of computer simulation tools to predict seal performance is demonstrated.

Keywords:

• Face seals
• mechanical seal
• hydrostatic lubrication

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to John Crane Management for supporting the work and permission to publish the results and thanks his colleagues. Marc Roer for carrying out numerous seal tests, Dr. Klaus Meck and Dr. Jorge Pacheco for technical inputs, and Annie Wood for editorial corrections.