Other

Abraham Lipshitz

Robert A Frosch

Izhak Etsion

The object of the invention is to improve the film stiffness of a face seal without increasing the sealing and dam area. The improved sealing apparatus (16) has a primary seal ring (20) in the form of a nose piece. A spring (24) forces a sealing surface (28) on the seal ring into sealing contact with a seat (18) to form a face seal. A circumferential clearance seal is formed in series with this face seal by a lip (34) on the nose piece. The width of the surface (36) of the lip is substantially the same as the width of the sealing surface (28) on the face seal. Also the clearance between the surface (36) on the lip and the shaft (10) is substantially the same as the spacing between the face sealing surfaces (28 and 30) on the face seal when the shaft is rotating. The circumferential clearance seal restricts the flow of fluid from a main cavity (14) to an intermediate cavity (32) with a resulting pressure drop. The hydrostatic opening face is strongly dependent on the face seal clearance, and the desired axial stiffness is achieved.

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University Heights, OH, United States of America

Abraham Lipshitz