Mechanical seals are mechanisms that are used to prevent fluid leakage. Since the seal surfaces are in contact with one another, hydrodynamic and contact forces are functions of surface roughness. Additionally, since the lubrication regime under specific operating conditions such as low speed or high load causes the seal to operate in the mixed lubrication regime, thus the contact of asperities plays an important role. The primary purpose of this paper is to apply the load-sharing concept to study the behavior of a mechanical seal in a mixed lubrication regime. The predicted results are compared to the published data from the literature, showing acceptable accuracy. The model presented in this paper can predict the performance of the mechanical seal system in a short execution time while providing acceptable accuracy by considering the surface roughness effect.
Friction and wear play an important role in the tribological performance of any tribo-system. These two parameters are themselves functions of a variety of different factors such as material properties, surface roughness, applied load, sliding speed, and lubricant properties. In this research, experimental and theoretical investigation on the friction coefficient in line contact is conducted. The theoretical part is based on the load-sharing concept and the friction coefficient is obtained assuming non-Newtonian behaviour for the lubricant. The wear coefficient is then predicted using continuum damage mechanics (CDM) approach in which three times the number of cycles for a wear fragment to form is assumed to be equal to the inverse of the wear coefficient. The experimental part is conducted using a pin-on-disk test rig with disks made from ST37 and pin made of AISI 52100 bearing steel. The geometry of the pin is changed to make sure that a rectangular contact occurs. The predicted values for friction coefficient and wear coefficient are compared to experimentally determined values. It is shown that the presented CDM-based approach has the capability to be used for predicting the behaviour of a tribo-system in the mixed lubrication regime.
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