Vaporization Phase Transition in Cryogenic Liquid Oxygen Sealing Film on Spiral Groove Faces

Abstract

The property of vaporization phase transition in liquid oxygen face seals is a key factor affecting the stability of mechanical face seals in many fields, especially under cryogenic conditions. Here, a numerical model based on the saturated vapor pressure is established to investigate the vaporization phase transition property of liquid oxygen sealing film. The novelty of this model is to take the influence of heat transfer and face distortions into consideration at the same time. The pressure and temperature distributions as well as face distortions are calculated, and then the property of vaporization phase transition and sealing performance are analyzed. It is found that spiral grooves may lead to the complex film temperature distributions and irregular vaporization distributions. With the increase in seal temperature and decrease in seal pressure, the vaporization area extends from the low-pressure side to the grooves area, and the vaporization rate increases rapidly. The more important thing is that the vaporization often brings a drastic fluctuation and non-monotonic change in opening force. Specifically, with the increase inin seal temperature from 55 K to 140 K, the opening force fluctuates violently, and the fluctuation range is more than 50%, showing an obvious instability. Finally, this study provides a design range of pressure and temperature values for liquid oxygen face seals. In these ranges, this kind of face seals can have a stable operation, which is beneficial to the practice engineering related to the complex properties of sealing fluid.