FORCES AND MOMENTS DUE TO MISALIGNMENT VIBRATIONS IN ANNULAR LIQUID SEALS USING THE AVERAGED NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS

This paper presents a method to calculate forces and moments in misali gned annular liquid seals operating in centered position and turbulent flow regimes. The method is based on the numerical integration of the perturbed averaged Navier-Stokes equations so it has the capacity to treat recirculating flows in seal grooves. Due to the analytic coordin ate transformation used in deriving the perturbed flow equations, the approach is limited to smooth-rotor seals. The perturbed flow equation s are cast in an appropriate form in order to obtain a single expressi on for eccentric and misaligned seals; The boundary conditions are obt ained from the no-slip conditions and from the logarithmic law. Valida tions of the method are made using the experimental results of Kanemor i and Iwatsubo (1994) for a straight seal. Comparisons with other theo retical predictions are also included Forces and moments in a four-gro oves labyrinth seal are discussed.