A Review of Mechanical Seals Heat Transfer Augmentation Techniques

A mechanical face seal is one of most widely used components in rotating machinery such as pumps, mixers, blowers, and compressors. The primary function of a mechanical seal is to prevent leakage of the process fluid from the pump housing and shaft to the environment. Excessive heat generated at the face seal interface has been recognized as one of main causes of failure of mechanical seals. In the past few decades various efforts have been attempted to remove heat from the interface uniformly in order to reduce the interfacial temperature, eliminate thermally-induced failure, and thus increase the life of a mechanical seal. In this paper, a class of the pertinent patents on mechanical seals that use heat transfer augmentation techniques are reviewed and discussed. Also presented are several new approaches recently proposed by the authors specifically developed for enhancing heat transfer augmentation in mechanical face seal.