Numerical and Experimental Investigation of the Sealing Effect of a Specific Labyrinth Seal Structure

A numerical simulation and experimental study were performed to investigate the sealing effect of the labyrinth seal used in a wheel-side reducer. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model was established based on the labyrinth structure. The effects of the temperature and viscosity of lubricant, rotor speed, pressure ratio, clearance, and cavity size of the sealing structure on the sealing were analyzed, and the leakage amount under the corresponding values of different factors was also analyzed. The results indicated that increase in the lubricating oil temperature, viscosity, pressure ratio, and seal clearance lead to decrease in the sealing effect and increases in the leakage. And the effect of rotational speed on the seal is low. To verify numerical simulation, the results of numerical analysis, a test bench was set up to simulate the work of the reducer, and the sealing effect of the sealing structure was examined. The simulation result was compared with the actual results. Both the numerical simulation and experiment indicate that the labyrinth seal achieves the desired sealing effect.