While brush seals can be found in various applications for turbomachines today, leaf seals are a further development in compliant seal technology and have a lower level of maturity. Among the purported advantages are greater axial rigidity when subject to higher pressure differences and the potential for non-contacting operation due to lift-up. However, especially their rotordynamic behavior is little investigated in the literature so far. In this paper, measured rotordynamic force coefficients of a leaf seal are presented for varying inlet pressures, preswirl velocities and excitation frequencies. The leaf pack of the tested leaf seal has zero rotor cold clearance and its coverplates are designed for facilitating a lift-up effect when pressurizing the seal. Experiments were performed on a dynamic test rig with whirling rotor using active magnetic bearing technology and evaluated in the frequency domain based on the impedance method. Test results for the leaf seal reveal positive direct stiffness and an advantageous rotordynamic behavior due to significant levels of direct damping and negative cross-coupled stiffness throughout the operating parameter range. Leaf seal results are compared to brush and labyrinth seal data from previous studies for varying inlet pressures and preswirl velocities. Additional computational fluid dynamics simulations were carried out to predict the leaf deflection moment, which support the findings regarding hydrostatic lift-up from the experimental results.

In this paper, different notch and partition wall arrangements of a fully partitioned pocket damper seal (FPDS) are investigated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The CFD model is derived for a baseline FPDS design reflecting the full sealing configuration with a structured mesh. Steady-state simulations are performed for eccentric rotor position and different operational parameters. The results are validated using experimental cavity pressure measurements. In transient computations, rotor whirl is modeled as a circular motion around an initial eccentricity using a moving mesh technique. Different whirl frequencies are computed to account for the frequency-dependent behavior of damper seals. The stiffness and damping coefficients are evaluated from the impedances in the frequency domain using a fast Fourier transform. The validated model is then transferred to varying designs. In addition to the baseline design, six different notch arrangements with constant clearance ratio were modeled. Moreover, two partition wall design variations were studied based on manufacturability considerations. Predicted leakage as well as frequency-dependent stiffness and damping coefficients are presented and the impact of geometry variations on these parameters is discussed. The results suggest that a single centered notch is favorable and indicate considerably higher effective damping for a design with staggered partition walls. A rounded partition wall design with significantly eased manufacturing reveals good performance.

In this paper, a hybrid brush pocket damper seal is studied theoretically using computational fluid dynamics. In the hybrid sealing arrangement, the brush seal element with cold clearance is placed downstream of a 4-bladed, 8-pocket, fully partitioned pocket damper seal. The new seal geometry is derived based on designs of short brush-labyrinth seals studied in previous works. Transient CFD simulations coupled with the multi-frequency rotor excitation method are performed to determine frequency-dependent stiffness and damping coefficients of pocket damper seals. A moving mesh technique is applied to model the shaft motion on a predefined whirling orbit. The rotordynamic coefficients are calculated from impedances obtained in frequency domain. The pocket damper seal CFD model is validated against available experimental and numerical results found in the literature. Bristle pack in the brush seal CFD model is described as porous medium. The applied brush seal model is validated using the measurements obtained in previous works from two test rigs. Predicted leakage characteristics as well as stiffness and damping coefficients of the hybrid brush pocket damper seal are presented for different operating conditions. In this case, the rotordynamic coefficients are calculated using a single-frequency transient simulation. By adding the brush seal, direct stiffness is predicted to be significantly decreased while effective damping shows a more moderate or no reduction depending on excitation frequency. Effective clearance results indicate more than halved leakage compared to the case without brush seal.

In this paper, different notch and partition wall arrangements of a fully partitioned pocket damper seal (FPDS) are investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The CFD model is derived for a baseline FPDS design reflecting the full sealing configuration with a structured mesh. Steady-state simulations are performed for eccentric rotor position and different operational parameters. The results are validated using experimental cavity pressure measurements. In transient computations, rotor whirl is modeled as a circular motion around an initial eccentricity using a moving mesh technique. Different whirl frequencies are computed to account for the frequency-dependent behavior of damper seals. The stiffness and damping coefficients are evaluated from the impedances in the frequency domain using a Fast Fourier Transform. The validated model is then transferred to varying designs. In addition to the baseline design, six different notch arrangements with constant clearance ratio were modeled. Moreover two partition wall design variations were studied based on manufacturability considerations. Predicted leakage as well as frequency-dependent stiffness and damping coefficients are presented and the impact of geometry variations on these parameters is discussed. The results suggest that a single centered notch is favorable and indicate considerably higher effective damping for a design with staggered partition walls. A rounded partition wall design with significantly eased manufacturing reveals good performance.

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