Investigation of the sealing performance of the gearbox sealing system of high-speed trains

ABSTRACT

Based on the analysis methods of lubricant–air separation and oil scavenging, a discrete phase model (DPM) considering droplet–wall interactions is used to analyze lubricant–air separation effectiveness, the volume of fluid (VOF) is used to analyze oil-scavenging effectiveness, and the sealing mechanism of the gearbox sealing system of high-speed trains is comprehensively studied. This study shows that the sealing effectiveness is influenced by the lubricant–air separation effectiveness and the oil-scavenging effectiveness. The separation effectiveness depends on the air drag force and the inertia of the lubricant droplets. The oil-scavenging effectiveness is related to the distribution of the lubricant after separation. In addition, with increasing lubricant droplet size, the sealing effectiveness first decreases and then increases, and the sealing system has the highest sealing effectiveness for medium-diameter droplets. The lower the outlet pressure is, the lower the sealing efficiency of the sealing system.

CO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

• Chen, ping-Hei

ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

• Jeng, Yeau-Ren

KEYWORDS:

• Gearbox sealing system
• discrete phase model (DPM)
• droplet–wall interaction model
• volume of fluid (VOF)
• sealing effectiveness

Nomenclature

Table

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. (Testing data, codes for implemented models, and evaluation metrics). https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Investigation_of_the_sealing_performance_of_the_gearbox_sealing_system_of_high-speed_trains/21435660

Additional information

Funding

The material in this paper is based on work supported by National Railway Group Science and Technology Program grant (N2020J026, N2021J028), the Independent Research and Development Projects of State Key Laboratory of Heavy Duty AC Drive Electric Locomotive Systems Integration (R111720H01385), and the Independent Research and Development Projects of a Key Laboratory grant (2022TPL-T02).