Windback seal design for gas compressors: a numerical and experimental study

TL;DRAbstract

Seals are considered one of the important flow elements of a turbomachinery device.\nTraditional labyrinth seals have proven their performance functionality by reducing leakage\nrates. Significant improvements on labyrinth seal functionality were obtained through altering\nthe design geometry of labyrinth seals to prevent contamination across a seal and maintaining\nsmall leakage flowrates. This results in a windback seal that has only one tooth which\ncontinuously winds around the shaft like a screw thread. These seals are used in gas compressors\nto isolate the gas face seal from bearing oil. A purge gas is passed through the seal into the\nbearing housing. The helical design allows the seal to clear itself of any oil contamination.\nWindback seal performance is controlled through changing the seal geometry. A 2D graphical\ndesign tool for calculating the total and cavity leakage flowrates for windback seals is\nintroduced.\nThe effectiveness of the Fluent CFD (Computational Fluid Dy

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