Performance Degradation Analysis of Mechanical Seal Based on Vibration Signal Processing

Mechanical seals are widely used in the rotation parts in various applications, and the failure of them may cause serious consequences, such as pollution, corrosion, equipment retirement, heavy casualties and other economic losses. The leakage rate of mechanical seal is mainly determined by the film thickness between rotor ring and stator ring. Moreover, the film thickness is one of the most important factors which affect the vibration of mechanical seal. In this work, performance degradation analysis of mechanical seal based on vibration signal processing is proposed. The wavelet filter is used to reduce noise in the vibration signal caused by cavitation of film between stator ring and rotor ring. The RMS of vibration signal of mechanical seal is considered as the indicator of the performance degradation. Simulation results show that the RMS of vibration signal reflects the sealing performance of mechanical seals, and the RMS of vibration signal increases with the increasing film thickness.