ENHANCING SEALING AND DYNAMIC PERFORMANCE WITH PARTIALLY POROUS MECHANICAL FACE SEALS

A partially porous mechanical face seal is analyzed. The Reynolds equa tion is solved analytically and the pressure distribution, leakage, an d dynamic coefficients are presented in closed form analytical express ions. It is shown that a partially porous seal has an axial stiffness even in cases of flat parallel faces when solid face seals have no suc h stiffness at all. A comparison is made between optimally designed pa rtially porous and coned face seals. It is shown that the former give substantial improvement.