Performance Characteristics of Spiral-Groove and Shrouded Rayleigh Step Profiles for High-Speed Noncontacting Gas Seals

Current methods in gas lubrication have been used in this paper to analyze the gas-film characteristics in a high-speed, face-type gas seal. Detailed analyses are presented for two different surface geometries, the spiral-groove-orifice seal and the shrouded Rayleigh step seal. Results are presented in three parts. The first part shows the performance of a spiral-groove seal without the orifices, and also the difference in performance when the grooves are located at the high pressure, low pressure, or both sides. The second part gives typical performance of a nonparallel film profile for the spiral-groove-orifice seal as well as for the shrouded Rayleigh step seal. In the last part, a comparison is made between the two seal geometries on their tolerance to coning or dishing under a constant seal load.