Thermoplastic labyrinth seals to reduce leakage in centrifugal compressors

Metz, Kolja

Thermoplastic labyrinth seals offer the possibility to reduce the internal leakage flow over the cover disc of closed impellers in centrifugal compressors. The efficiency gain compared to traditional metallic labyrinth seals mainly depends on differential pressure and sealing clearance. The presentation shows the results of development and testing of thermoplastic labyrinth seals, which are fully interchangeable with previous metallic seals. A seal design for integrally geared centrifugal compressors is introduced and the calculation of optimized sealing clearances for different operation conditions is shown