Leakage Calculation Method of Carbon Fiber Brush Seal Based on Porous Medium

Abstract As a kind of flexible high-speed dynamic sealing device, brush seal has a good application prospect in high-speed dynamic sealing parts of major equipment, such as gas path of aircraft engines, rocket motors and gas turbines. However, the theoretical research and practical engineering application of brush seal are limited because there are some problems in the practical application. For example, the tip of bristle burned by friction heat under high speed, increased wear and the difficult calculation of leakage. To this end, the structure of the brush seal use the carbon fiber instead of the high-temperature alloy metal bristle. Then the carbon fiber brush volume equivalent diameter is used to establish the carbon fiber brush resistance calculation model based on the porous medium method, which construct the leakage calculation model of the carbon fiber brush seal. Finally, they are obtained by solution of the model in Fluent software that the leakage flow characteristics of the carbon fiber brush seal at work and the influence of different working conditions and structural parameters on the leakage performance. The results show that the carbon fiber calculation model has better adaptability, and the calculation results also show that the carbon fiber brush seal has a lower leakage than the metal bristle under the same working condition. Moreover, the linear factors affecting the leakage of the carbon fiber brush seal are the height of the back plate and the diameter of the bristle, and the height of the front baffles has little effect, while the nonlinear factors are the thickness of brush and the angle of the bristle arrangement. The study provide an significant reference for high performance design of brush seal and its engineering applications.