Comparative Analysis of Seal Structure and Aerodynamic Characteristics of Labyrinth and Leaf Seals

The structure feature aerodynamic characteristics, sealing mechanisms and sealing effect of labyrinth seal and leaf seal are numerically studied under same condition, the difference of two kinds seals is compared. The reliability of commercial computational fluid dynamics computational code CFX is validated by using the experimental data from literature. The performance curves of computation has a good agreement with the experimental data, the numerical simulation method is feasible. Numerical simulation on the flow field of the labyrinth seal and leaf seal are carried out respectively by using the commercial software CFX. Through comparison analysis based on the calculation results of the two type seals, their sealing mechanisms is described, the sealing characteristics and the friction torque variation law of their own are given. The analysis results show that, the radial clearance of leaf seal is much smaller than the labyrinth seal, its leakage flow rate is about 1/3 labyrinth seal's, and the friction resistance torque on the rotation axis is lower than the labyrinth seal. Because of the superiority of the leaf seals in structure operation characteristics and aerodynamic performance, leaf seals may replace labyrinth seals in the near future.