Analysis of Wear Performance of Two Finger Seal Structure

Abstract

To reveal the wear law of parabola-shaped and arc-shaped finger seals (FSs), the wear characteristics of parabola-shaped and arc-shaped FSs were studied in this paper. Firstly, a formula for calculating the contact stress of finger boot/rotor is established according to bootlace theory. Secondly, based on the mathematical model of wear rate in related literature, the influence of structural parameters on FS wear was investigated. Results showed that when the rotor speed is less than 1700 r/min, the contact stress of the parabolic FS is less than that of the arc-shaped FS; when the rotation speed is greater than 1700 r/min, the contact stresses of the parabolic and arc-shaped FSs increase rapidly. Furthermore, when the speed is greater than 4000 r/min, the contact stresses of the two structures are similar. When the rotor speed is less than 3000 r/min, the trends of the wear rate of the parabolic and arc-shaped FS structures are irregular; when the rotor speed is greater than 3000 r/min, the wear rate of the parabolic FS structure is greater than the arc-shaped FS, and the wear rates of the two structures increase exponentially. Our results provide theoretical basis and reference for the wear performance of PFS and AFS.