Leakage and whirl speed study in labyrinth seal using CFD

Labyrinth seal leakage and force estimates are important to the prediction of the stability of rotor-bearing-seal system. The leakage flow is predicted by ANYSYS-CFX in different radial clearance, pressure and whirl speed. It produced labyrinth seal force when the gas flow through the seal. The major goals in this paper were to calculate the rotordynamic labyrinth seals force using ANSYS-CFX, and to compare the labyrinth seal force magnitude under different whirl speed. In addition to the traditional method in mesh independence study, it use of small vortex determine whether mesh to meet the requirement. By the compare, the small vortex is also to describe mesh independence test.