NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF COMPRESSIBLE FLOW IN LABYRINTH SEALS

The labyrinth seals are the devices used machines which serve to restr ict the leakages crossing a carter (or stator) by a rotating shaft (or rotor) and to avoid the important friction to high rotation speeds. T hese devices, which in addition behave as shaft bearings, can modify t he dynamics characteristics of the line of the shaft in which they are integrated. The present work has been carried out with the purpose of controlling better the flows within the labyrinth seals and to determ ine their static (leakage-pressure) and dynamic (stiffness and damping coefficients) characteristics. It's based on the development of a glo bal numerical model, and on the integration of the obtained correlatio ns by 3D axisymmetric computation in this model.