This invention relates to a brush seal device to seal between a fixed component and a relative moving component of assembling portion of an engine or a power generation gas turbine engine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a brush seal device to prevent the abrasion of a seal brush by a sealing fluid which acts between connecting spaces of a divided portion in a brush seal device which tightly connects the divided portion.
For example, when a ring shape brush seal device is assembled between bearings of a steam turbine, it is necessary to remove a rotary body and the bearings to assemble the brush seal device. In addition, when the rotary body has a large diameter, a brush seal device will have larger diameter in response to that, thus a yield rate deteriorates because the brush seal device is cut out from the material including the dimension of this large diameter. Further, since the large size brush seal device is heavy weight articles, it is necessary to assemble by hanging using a crane and the like which would be difficult to assemble. Thus, it is considered to assemble by dividing the brush seal device. However, when a pressure of the sealing fluid acts to the divided portion of the brush seal device, it has been identified that performance of the brush seal device is reduced.
This problem will be further described. As for a brush seal device according to the present invention, a brush seal comprised of bristles have an identical wire diameter, there is a brush seal device wherein various brush seal aligned in an axial direction as a multilayer.
In
The brush seal device 100 is mounted to an end portion of the barrel 110 via a retainer 111. Also, a sealing bristle 101 which are a bundle of the fine wires, and a packing bristle 102 which are a bundle of the thick wires are arranged in parallel between a packing plate 105 of the first gap E side at the sealing fluid side and a packing plate 106 of the second gap O side of the outer side.
An inner diameter dimension of an inner circumference face 101A of the seal bristle 101, an inner circumference face 102A of the packing bristle 102, and an inner circumference face 106A of the packing plate 106 are formed so that it becomes larger sequentially towards the second gap O side of the outer side (right side of the drawing). Then, it is constituted that the seal bristle 101 is supported by the packing bristle 102, and the packing bristle 102 is supported by the packing plate 106 against a pressure of the sealing fluid.
When the brush seal device 100 constituted as such receives the pressure of the sealing fluid, since the seal bristle 101 is formed as the most longest from a fixed end to the inner diameter, and a side face of the seal bristle is contacted and supported by the packing bristle 102 of the thick wires as well as the seal bristle 101 is the most fine wires, the free end side rubs against the packing bristle 102 while fluctuates continuously. Therefore, it is a problem that the seal bristle 101 which are fine wires to abrade the first, thus reduce the sealing ability. In particular, when receiving the pressure change of the sealing fluid, the seal bristle 101 which directly contacts with the sealing fluid, and tends to promote the abrasion by getting the seal bristle 101 into the packing bristle 102.
Next, as an another similar invention, there is a brush seal which has improved the abrasion of the inner circumferential contact face and the chamfering of the inner circumferential surface of the brush seal device which rises when rotary axis is eccentric. Although the illustration thereof is omitted, there is a brush seal wherein the arrangement of the bristles (layer) are reversed to each other which is the opposite of the above mentioned brush seal device. This prior art is disclosed in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 of Patent Document 3 which is mentioned in a following paragraph 0009. Namely, there is a brush seal that a packing bristle (layer) having thick wire diameter is arranged at a side of the sealing fluid side gap and a sealing bristle (layer) having narrow wire diameter which is arranged at a gap side of outer portion side. However, in this brush seal device, when receiving a sealing fluid pressure, the whole sealing ability decreases rapidly, because a free end side of the seal bristle which is narrow wire material ware outs rapidly and the sealing fluid leaks from the ware out portion.
Patent Document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,590 (Japanese translation laid open No. 2000-508732)
Patent Document 2: U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,530
Patent Document 3: U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,920
The present invention is made by considering such problems. And a problem to be solved by the present invention is to prevent the abrasion of each brush wire members neighboring to a connecting portion due to the scuffing together with the outer force such as a fluid pressure, a vibration force and the like. Further, it aims to improve the sealing ability of the connecting portion of a brush seal device. Furthermore, it aims to reduce the manufacturing cost by making the production of a brush seal device easy which is composed of a large number of bristle.
The present invention has been made to solve the above technical problems. Accordingly, a technical solving means is composed as follows.
A brush seal device according to the present invention is a brush seal device having a divided brush seal equipped to one component of a stationary component and a relative moving component to shut off a space between the stationary and the relative moving components, said divided brush seal comprising;
a base having a mounting body section available to be held on the one component and having a support face located at a side face of sealing fluid side extending from the mounting body section to another component side,
a first end portion having a first connecting face at one connecting end side of the base,
a second end portion having a second connecting face at another connecting end face, and
a seal brush having bristle groups arranged as a plate shape along with the supporting face from the first end portion to the second end portion, wherein;
said bristle groups includes bristles extending parallel to said supporting face, free ends of said bristles are facing to another component, base ends of said bristles are fixed with a fasting portion on said mounting body section,
said bristle groups are composed of a first bristle group of the first end portion with a first length range, another first bristle group of the second end portion with a second length range, and a second bristle group provided between the first bristle groups of the first length range and the second length range,
wire diameters of the first bristles are thicker than those of the second bristles,
said first connecting face of the first end portion of one divided brush seal and said second connecting face of the second end portion of another divided brush seal are connectable, and
the first connecting face of the first bristle group included in the first end portion of one divided brush seal and the second connecting face of the first bristle group included in the second end portion of another divided brush seal are connectable each other.
A brush seal device according to the present invention, a first end portion of a first divided brush seal and a second end portion of a second divided brush seal are connected sequentially to form a brush seal device. In this connecting portion of the divided brush seal, a fine gap is formed between a first and a second connecting faces opposing to each other, upon considering a thermal deformation by the heat of sealing fluid and an allowance for assembling the divided brush seal. Thus, when receiving a pressure of the sealing fluid, the seal brush adjacent to the gap oscillates as swinging. However, since a wire diameter of a first bristle of a first bristle group is formed thicker than a wire diameter of a second bristle of a second bristle group, the first bristle group do not oscillate and the abrasion thereof is prevented. Therefore, during long term operation, since the first bristle group and the second bristle group abrade almost equally, it effectively prevents the sealing fluid leak from the gap between the first and the second connecting faces due to a quick abrasion of the first bristle group at the connecting portion.
Also, manufacturing cost of this brush seal device can be reduced as the manufacturing is easy, since the first bristle group and the second bristle group can be aligned in a range which is set by dividing. Further, it is available to realize the sealing performance by the second bristle group which is a large part of the seal brush. Furthermore, the abrasion of the seal brush raised by an outer force at a connecting portion of the divided brush seal can be prevented effectively by the first bristle group as well as the sealing performance can be exerted.
Here, the brush seal device of embodiments according to the present invention will be specified with reference to the drawings. Note that, following described drawings are based on the design drawings.
This brush seal device seals, for example, the leaking of the high temperature and high pressure fluid, or cooling air from a gap between a stationary component and a rotary component. A brush seal of a preferred embodiment according to the present invention will be described.
A rotor assembly 20 of the assembly components in the turbine engine is held by a bearing which is not shown. Also, a barrel 30 is formed in a cylindrical shape and is fit concentrically by providing an annular gap C between an inner circumferential face 30B with respect to the outer circumferential face 20A of the rotor assembly. For preventing the leakage of the sealing fluid from the gap C of the sealing fluid side F to an outer side O, as shown in
The brush seal device 1 is formed as a ring shape by connecting respective divided brush seal 2, respective first end portion 3X and a second end portion 3Y of respective connecting side which are divided as circular arc shape from a ring shaped body. Although the structure of the barrel 30 is complicated, the divided brush seal 2 can be attached with the mounting portion 30A by sequentially connecting the respective first and the second end portion 3X, 3Y of the divided seal 2, it may be fitted while assembling towards a circumferential direction from the outer circumferential side to the outer circumferential face 20A without disassembling the rotor assembly 20, and the yield of the material is increased because the base portion 3 and the fastening portion 13 can be cut out respectively from the material having a size of the divided brush seal 2, in case that the conventional base portion 3 has a ring shape with large diameter.
Also, as shown in
A mounting space portion 6 having T-shape cross section and formed in the hyperbolic length, is formed between the supporting plate 3A and the holding plate 3B. An outer circumferential side of the mounting space portion 6 is formed at a sandwiching portion 6A. Also, an inner circumferential face in radial direction at the mounting space 6 side of the supporting portion 3A is formed at a supporting face 3A1. Also, the inner circumferential face in a radial direction at the mounting space portion 6 side (sealing fluid side) of the holding portion 3B is formed at a space D in which a space between the supporting face 3A1 becomes larger than a width size of the sandwiching portion 6A side by forming an inner circumferential side of the face, which opposes to the supporting face 3A1 on a gapped lower face 3B1. Even if the seal brush 10 is mounted to the enlarged space D as shown in
As shown in
Following are described by referring to
Also, it is preferable that the first length range L1 of one of the first bristle layer 11A and the second length range L2 of the other first bristle layer 11A are set in a range of 7 mm to 25 mm from the connecting face of the respective first bristle layer 11A in the divided brush seal 2 to the second bristle layer 11B side. More preferably, the length range L1, L2 of the first bristle layers 11A and 11A respectively are set in a range of 10 mm to 20 mm. Further, a ratio of a total length of the first length range L1 of one of the first bristle layer 11A+the second length range L2 of the other first bristle layer 11A in an entire circumference with respect to the entire circumference of the seal brush 10 is preferably less than 10%. As for the reason of this, when the total ratio in the entire circumference of the first length range L1 of the respective first bristle layer 11A+the length of the second length range L2+ . . . to the length ranges L3+L3+ . . . of the circumferential direction of the entire second bristle layers 11B is set to more than 10%, there is a risk to accelerate the abrasion of the seal brush 10 and the rotor assembly (rotation member) 20 when sliding, because the rigidity of the seal brush 10 becomes too high. Further, it is noted when the first length range L1 of the first bristle layer 11A+the second length range L2 of the first bristle layer 11A is less than 7 mm, the sealing ability is deteriorated because the abrasion of the second bristle layer 11B of the first bristle layer 11A side is accelerated. Note that, it is preferable that the first length range L1 and the second length range L2 are substantially the same length. Also, as shown in
In
As shown in
Then, the connecting portion R of the first connecting face 4A and the second connecting face 4B connects the second circumferential direction face 4A2 of the first connecting face 4A and the second circumferential direction face 4B2 of the second connecting face 4B; and the respective radial direction faces 4A1 and 4A3 of the first connecting face 4A and the respective radial direction faces 4B1 and 4B3 of the second connecting face 4B are connected by small space considering the deformation and the like. In this manner, each connecting portion R of a third and a fourth brush seals 2 are connected sequentially to form a ring shape. Note that, the first, the second . . . divided brush seals 2, 2 are referred as sequential number which connect annularly. Further, a joint portion of the first connecting face 4A and the second connecting face 4B is referred as a joint portion R.
In case of the brush seal device 1 composed as above, when the sealing fluid leaks from the connecting gap between the first contact face 4A and the second connecting face 4B at the connecting portion R of the divided brush seal 2, in case of a conventional bristle, the bristles adjacent to the connecting portion R abrade at the end, as a result of the friction against each other. However, the first bristle 11A equipped at the connecting portion R of the present invention, since it is made thicker than the second bristle 11B1, the rigidity of the first bristle 11A1 becomes multiple times (about 2.9 times) compared to that of the second bristle 11B1. Therefore, the first bristle layer 11A composed of the first bristle 11A1 can be prevented from rubbing each other even when receiving the pressure P of the sealing fluid. As a result of this, the sealing ability of the brush seal device 1 is improved since the abrasion is prevented even when the seal brush 10 receives the flow of the pressure fluid or the fluctuating pressure.
Also, when the high temperature sealing fluid flows in a passage of a passage tube in a gas turbine and the like, in some case the high temperature sealing fluid leaks out from the contact face of the respective passage. Also, on the contrary to this, in some cases the sealing fluid for cooling the passage tube may flow in from the contact face. Thermal efficiency of the gas turbine is lowered, if these sealing fluids leak from the contact faces. Further, if the sealing fluid leaks from the contact faces, a temperature of the gas in the passage tube become locally high and, the passage components such as turbine blades and the stator vanes in a downstream of the passage becomes high temperature. Duration of the components is decreased which is made of materials without considering this matter. Even in such various cases, by attaching the brush seal device 1 of the present invention between the respective contact faces of the passage tube, it is possible to effectively seal the sealing fluid leaking from the respective contact face. Simultaneously, the abrasion of the first bristle layer 11A and the second bristle layer 11B at the connecting portion R can be effectively prevented.
Other than the above embodiments, as a usage of the present invention, it can be used to the fixed components and the relative movement components which move relatively in linear or in a curving fashion. For example, in the nuclear plant components or the industrial machines and the like, the cross section of the fixed component is formed in a square or a circular shape and formed as a linear rail or an annular rail. On the other hand, the relative movement components are devices which move while surrounding the rails. The pressure fluid acts to an inner portion of the rail side of the device corresponding to the relative movement component. In this case, in the present invention, it is constituted that the divided brush seal device 1 is mounted to the relative movement component and the seal brush 10 side of the brush seal device 1 faces to the fixed component. Then, when the relative movement component moves relatively on the rail which is the fixed component, the sealing fluid present in the internal of the device is sealed by the brush seal device 1.
In the following, with respect to the other embodiments of the brush seal device according to the present invention, constitution, functions and effects thereof will be described.
A brush seal device of a first invention of an embodiment according to the present invention in which a relative moving component is a rotation component, respective divided brush seal is formed as a circular arc, a first connecting face of a first end portion and a second connecting face of a second end portion are arranged as adjacent to each other, a first contact face of a first bristle group of the first end portion and a second connecting face of a first bristle group of the second end portion are connected with each other by contacting so as to form the divided brush seal around the rotation component in a ring shape.
In a brush seal device of a first invention according to the present invention, in case that a base portion has larger diameter, it is necessary to cut out the base portion from a large material which meets the large base portion, however since it is possible to cut out a material meeting the divided base portion as the circumference has been divided, the yield of the material improves. Also, although a gap between both of the connecting faces of the connecting portion of the annular brush seal device varies due to the expansion and contraction by the temperature or the assembling matters, the sealing ability of the connecting portion in the brush seal device is improved by the both first bristle groups which are each connected by contacting with each other even when the gap becomes larger. Also, the abrasion of the seal brush can be prevented by the first bristle group composed of thick bristles. Further, it has a similar effect described in the above mentioned paragraph of the present invention.
A brush seal device of a second invention according to the present invention has a wire diameter of the first bristle of each first bristle layer is from 1.2 times to 1.7 times thicker than a wire diameter of a second bristle of a second bristle layer.
In the brush seal device of the second invention according to the present invention, since a wire diameter of each first group bristle layer is made from 1.2 times to 1.7 times thicker than a wire diameter of a second bristle of a second bristle layer, the abrasion of the first bristle group at the connecting portion of the divided brush seal is prevented, and the same level of the durability as the second bristle group is confirmed. Accordingly, it becomes possible to perform sealing ability of the second bristle group dramatically.
A brush seal device of a third invention according to the present invention is formed so that a first length range and a second length range of each first bristle group are within the range 10 mm or more and 20 mm or less from an inner diameter ends of a first connecting face and a second connecting face.
In the brush seal device of the third invention according to the present invention, since the length of the respective bristle group is formed in 10 mm to 20 mm length, at the connecting portion of the divided brush seal, when the sealing fluid leaks from a contact gap of the first connecting face and the second connecting face towards a lower pressure side, each first bristle having rigidity is not swinging by a pressure of the sealing fluid, thus, it is available to prevent the abrasion. Also, since the length of the first bristle group is shorter than the length of the second bristle group, effect of the sealing ability can be performed by the second bristle group without inhibiting the sealing ability of the second bristle group.
As mentioned above, the brush seal of the present invention is useful to be used between the mounting faces of each assembling component of a general apparatus which seals the fluctuating pressure fluid and the high pressure fluid. Particularly, it is useful as a brush seal device used between the mounting faces with a thermal stress or the vibrating mounting faces due to the high temperature and the high pressure fluid of a steam turbine, a gas turbine or a nuclear plant component and the like. Further, in a connecting portion of a divided brush seal, by making a single layer seal brush possible, it is useful as a brush seal device which can reduce the manufacturing cost.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2006-187080 | Jul 2006 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/JP2007/063385 | 7/4/2007 | WO | 00 | 1/5/2009 |