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A dry gas seal is a mechanical seal that prevents leakage of gas from rotating machines utilizing gas as a medium. Fluid film in a dry gas seal can exhibit laminar, turbulent, and slip behavior due to operating conditions and design parameters. A modified Reynolds equation that considers the effects of laminar, turbulent, and slip behavior of a fluid film was proposed and solved using the finite-element and Newton–Raphson methods to calculate the pressure, opening force, and leakage rate. The accuracy of the developed program was verified by comparing the simulated pressure with that of prior research, and the measured leakage with simulated leakage. The characteristics of a T-groove dry gas seal were investigated according to laminar, turbulent, and slip behavior in the fluid film. The results show that the effects of laminar, turbulent, and slip behavior in a fluid film on a dry gas seal should be considered to accurately predict the characteristics of a dry gas seal.

The dynamic coefficients of a dry gas seal affect the dynamic characteristics of rotor-seal systems. Fluid films in a dry gas seal can be laminar, turbulent or with slip conditions, according to various operating conditions and design parameters. They can be defined as laminar or turbulent, depending on the Reynolds number, and as slip or non-slip, depending on the Knudsen number. However, previous research did not consider the effect of laminar, turbulent and slip conditions on the dynamic coefficients of a dry gas seal. We proposed a mathematical perturbation method to calculate the dynamic coefficients of the dry gas seal according to laminar, turbulent, and slip effects. We derived the perturbed equations of the modified Reynolds equation, which includes the effects of laminar, turbulent and slip conditions. The pressure of the modified Reynolds equation was solved using the finite element method and the Newton–Raphson method, and the perturbed pressures with respect to three degrees of freedom were calculated by substituting the calculated pressure into the perturbed equations. We verified the proposed method by comparing the simulated results with prior studies. The dynamic coefficients of a T-grooved dry gas seal were investigated according to laminar, turbulent, and slip conditions in a fluid film with different clearances.

We developed and optimized a block-type ultrasonic horn that can be used for cutting hard materials. The proposed block-type sonotrode consists of an aluminum horn and a tungsten carbide blade to increase the cutting of hard materials. We designed an initial ultrasonic block horn that has double slots and an exponential stepped profile. We developed a finite element model of the initial model and analyzed the characteristics of natural frequency and displacement. We formulated a DOE table and response surface to perform sensitivity analysis and analyze the correlation between the design variables and characteristics of the proposed block horn. The optimal ultrasonic block horn was derived via a multi-objective optimal design problem to maximize the amplitude uniformity of the proposed horn and frequency separation. We fabricated the optimal block horn and verified it experimentally. An ultrasonic cutting experiment was conducted to find the ultrasonic cutting force with hard ceramic composite materials. A cutting test with a conventional cutting machine under the same condition was also conducted to compare the cutting force. The proposed optimal ultrasonic cutter requires 70% less cutting force than the conventional cutter to cut a ceramic composite material and the cutting surface with the application of the proposed optimal ultrasonic cutter is much cleaner with no crack and delamination than that with the application of the conventional cutter.

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