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Numerical Analysis of Labyrinth Seal Performance for the Impeller Backface

Cavity of a Supercritical CO2 Radial Inflow Turbine

Article  in  Computer Modeling in Engineering and Sciences · January 2021

DOI: 10.32604/cmes.2021.014176

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Engineering & Sciences

DOI: 10.32604/cmes.2021.014176

ARTICLE

Numerical Analysis of Labyrinth Seal Performance for the Impeller

Backface Cavity of a Supercritical CO2 Radial Inflow Turbine

Jinguang Yang, Feng Zhao, Min Zhang* , Yan Liu and Xiaofang Wang

School of Energy and Power, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China

*
Corresponding Author: Min Zhang. Email: modest [email protected]
Received: 07 September 2020 Accepted: 23 November 2020

ABSTRACT
For a radial inflow turbine (RIT), leakage flow in impeller backface cavity has critical impacts on aerodynamic
performance of the RIT and axial force acting on the RIT impeller. In order to control this leakage flow, different
types of labyrinth seals are numerically studied in this paper based on a supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2 ) RIT.
The effects of seal clearance and cavity outlet pressure are first analyzed, and the impacts of seal design parameters,
including height, number and shape of seal teeth, are evaluated. Results indicate that adding labyrinth seal can
improve cavity pressure and hence adequately inhibits leakage flow. Decreasing the seal clearance and increasing
the height of seal teeth are beneficial to improve sealing performance, and the same effect can be obtained by
increasing the number of seal teeth. Meanwhile, employing seals can reduce leakage loss and improve RIT efficiency
under a specific range of cavity outlet pressure. Finally, the influences of seal types on the flow field in seal cavity
are numerically analyzed, and results demonstrate that isosceles trapezoidal type of seal cavity has better sealing
performance than triangular, rectangular and right-angled trapezoidal seal cavities.

KEYWORDS
Supercritical carbon dioxide; radial inflow turbine; impeller backface cavity; labyrinth seal; CFD simulation

1 Introduction
Supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2 ) Brayton cycle may be one of the most promising
approaches in future power generation systems [1]. It has higher thermal efficiency, smaller size
and better environmental friendliness when compared to traditional steam Rankine and air Bray-
ton cycles. Despite these superiorities, many challenges associated with turbomachinery designs,
cycle layouts, heat source and exchanger arrangements and so on need to be overcome for its
areal and wide application [2].
Similar to other turbomachinery plants, the S-CO2 power system is equipped with a turbine to
generate the work output. The turbine is generally designed in a radial inflow type for small scale
applications, and its performance is critical to S-CO2 cycle efficiency [3]. Due to this, improving
radial inflow turbine (RIT) performance is one of the major topics in both academic researches

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
936 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

and industrial practices. Many institutions such as Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) [4,5],
Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation [6,7] and Nuclear Power Institute of China [8] have
investigated RIT performance through experiments. Other researchers, e.g., Zhou et al. [9,10] and
Unglaube et al. [11] have conducted theoretical analyses or numerical simulations to clarify the
flow mechanism in S-CO2 RIT.
There are three configurations of RIT impellers, namely closed, semi-open and open types.
For a semi-open impeller, a backface cavity duct is connected with it. Therefore, there is a
clearance between impeller backface and turbine disc. This backface cavity [12] is generally full
with leakage flow that is introduced from the compressor outlet due to the pressure difference
(see Fig. 1 which is reproduced from Verstraete et al. [13]). This not only induces aerodynamic
loss but also leads to unbalanced axial force on the impeller. Hence, designing seal structures is
necessary to control leakage flow and ensure a safe operation for RITs.

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of backface cavity of semi-open impeller [13]

To the knowledge of the authors, there is little study in the open literature investigating
backface cavity flow [14], but seal technique is one of hot research topics. A well established and
widely used structure is labyrinth seal [15–17], which is a non-contact and clearance seal that
can rub against solid walls. Labyrinth seals have advantages of good sealing effectiveness, simple
structure and reliable operation, and are suitable for high temperature, high pressure and high-
speed turbine components. The mechanism of labyrinth seals to control leakage flow is ascribed
to a throttling effect when leakage crosses the clearance between seal teeth and interface wall, and
energy dissipation is produced when leakage flow enters sequential seal cavities. A comprehensive
overview of labyrinth seals in steam and gas turbines can be referred to Chupp et al. [18].
Yucel et al. [19] proposed an analytical method to calculate leakage mass flow rate and associ-
ated pressure distribution in a labyrinth seal cavity, and got results that had good agreements with
numerical and experimental data. Bariaud et al. [20] designed a labyrinth seal for the rotating parts
of a turbine, and experimentally proved that their designed seal configuration had a good sealing
performance. Li et al. [21] investigated the effect of revolution speed on the performance of a
staggered labyrinth seal. They pointed out that when the ratio of circumferential to axial through
flow velocity (U/Cax ) was lower than 1.0 (this value was the limitation of their experimental
setup), revolution speed had negligible impacts on seal leakage flow. However, Paolillo et al. [22]
got a conclusion via experiment that when U/Cax was larger than 5.0, employing seals could
reduce leakage mass flow rate by more than 20%. During the aerodynamic design process for the
impeller backface of an S-CO2 RIT, Ma et al. [14] proposed a pump-out vane to balance the axial
force on the impeller. Their numerical simulation results indicated that compared to a baseline
backface cavity, the designed one reduced the impeller axial force and improved the isentropic
efficiency of the RIT stage by 58% and 2.5% respectively.
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 937

According to above literature review, it is found that labyrinth seals have advantageous
impacts on RIT performance. However, there is little research to date investigating labyrinth seal
effectiveness for S-CO2 RITs. Due to this, based on an S-CO2 RIT previously designed by the
authors [23], this paper is intended to design a seal geometry for its impeller backface cavity. The
effects of different seal design and operation parameters, i.e., seal clearance, height, number and
shape of seal teeth, and cavity outlet pressure, are studied. The purpose is to get a labyrinth seal
geometry that can not only reduce leakage mass flow rate but also decrease the axial force acting
on impeller backface cavity.

2 The Studied S-CO2 RIT and Seal Geometry

Previously, a MW-class S-CO2 RIT was designed and optimized by the authors [23] using
an in-house one-dimensional aero-thermodynamic design code [24], and its typical operating
parameters are listed in Tab. 1. Based on the impeller backface of this RIT, labyrinth seals are
constructed, as illustrated in Fig. 2, where a two-dimensional schematic diagram of the seal is
also displayed. Parameters a, b, d and h represent the tip width, bottom width, pitch and height
of seal cavities respectively, while s is leakage clearance [25]. Their values can determine the
shape of seal teeth or seal cavities. Impacts of these design parameters and seal teeth number (n)
on sealing performance are investigated in this article. In addition, a reference seal structure
is constructed as datum case to compare performance of different seal configurations, and its
geometrical parameters are listed in Tab. 2.

Table 1: Operating parameters of the designed RIT

Parameter Unit Value

Inlet total temperature (Tt,in ) K 773.15
Inlet total pressure (Pt,in ) MPa 19.85
Outlet total pressure MPa 8.2
Mass flow rate kg/s 16
Design impeller revolution speed rpm 50000

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of the RIT and labyrinth seals

938 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

Table 2: Geometric parameters of the datum labyrinth seal

Parameter Unit Value

Seal cavity tip width (a) mm 1.2
Seal cavity bottom width (b) mm 1.8
Seal tooth pitch (d) mm 2.0
Seal tooth height (h) mm 1.8
Seal tooth number (n) – 4
Seal clearance (s) mm 0.2

3 Numerical Simulation Setup

Numerical simulations based on Computation Fluid Dynamic (CFD) technique are conducted
to investigate the impact of labyrinth seals on the RIT performance. The commercial software
Numeca [26] is used, and details of the numerical setup are described below.

3.1 Computational Domain and Grids

Fig. 3 presents the meridional sketch of the computational domain, which is composed of
the flow passage of vane and impeller, and the duct of impeller backface cavity. To reduce com-
putational cost, only one single-passage is constructed to model the RIT. The Numeca/AutoGrid
5 module is used to generate a structured mesh, and details of the mesh are also illustrated in
Fig. 3. The total number of computational grids is determined after a mesh-independence analysis,
which result will be shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 3: Computational domain of the RIT and details of the mesh

CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 939

Figure 4: Predicted total pressure ratio and specific output work of the SNL RIT

3.2 Flow Governing Equations

Flow in the RIT is governed by the Navier–Stokes Equations, which can be expressed as:
⎧
⎪ ∂ρ ∂  
⎪
⎪ + ρUj = 0
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂xj
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎨ ∂ (ρU )
i ∂   ∂p ∂τij
+ ρUi Uj = − + + SM,i (1)
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
⎪
⎪ 
⎪
⎪ ∂ (ρE) ∂   ∂ ∂T ∂  
⎪
⎪ + ρUj H = λ + Ui τij + Ui · SM,i
⎩
∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
where U, E, H, ρ and λ are density, velocity, total energy, total enthalpy, fluid density and thermal
conductivity respectively, SM,i contains Coriolis and centrifugal forces when solving the equation
in rotating frame, and τij is the shear stress tensor, which is defined for Newtonian fluid as:

 
∂Ui ∂Uj 2 →
τij = μ + − ∇ · U δij (2)
∂xj ∂xi 3
where μ is dynamic molecular viscosity. Direct solution of Eq. (1) needs huge computation and
time cost, so Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations are solved to model flow in the
RIT. Therefore, Eq. (1) is changed to:
⎧
⎪ ∂ρ ∂  
⎪
⎪ + ρUj = 0
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂xj
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪  
⎨ ∂ ρUi ∂   ∂p ∂  
+ ρUi Uj = − + τij − ρui uj (3)
⎪
⎪ ∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
⎪
⎪   
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎪ ∂ ρE ∂   ∂ ∂T ∂   
⎪
⎩ ∂t + ∂x ρUj H = ∂x λ ∂x − ρuj h + ∂x Ui τij − ρui uj
j j j j
940 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

where u and h are instantaneous velocity and enthalpy respectively, and other parameters are time
averaged value of flow quantities. In order to evaluate the Reynolds stress and turbulent heat
diffusion terms, i.e., ρui uj and ρuj h in Eq. (3), the Boussinesq’s assumption is used, i.e.,
 
∂Ui ∂Uj 2 ∂Uk
ρui uj = μt + − δij ρk + μt (4)
∂xj ∂xi 3 ∂xk
μt ∂h
ρuj h = (5)
Prt ∂xi
where μt is turbulent viscosity, Prt is turbulent Prandtl number. For turbulent flow, choosing an
appropriate turbulence model is important to accurately calculate μt [27]. Therefore, the Spallart–
Allmaras turbulence model is employed due to its good estimation of boundary layer flow [28].
Based on this, when generating the computational grid in Fig. 3, and the height of the grid cells
adjacent to solid walls (ywall ) is about 0.001 mm to make y+ below 10.

3.3 Boundary Conditions

Total pressure (Pt,in ) and total temperature (Tt,in ) are specified at the mainstream inlet,
where flow direction and turbulent viscosity are also defined. At the mainstream outlet, static
pressure (Ps,out ) is defined, and the radial equilibrium equation is used. Also, an average static
pressure value (Pc,out ) is set at the cavity duct outlet, and Pc,out is determined according to the
design leakage mass flow rate [23]. The effect of Pc,out on seal performance is investigated in
this study. In addition, all solid walls are no-slip and adiabatic. To calculate thermodynamic
properties of S-CO2 , the TabGen tool [26] is employed to generate a physical property table for
CFD calculations.

3.4 Solution Method

To solve the governing equation defined in Eq. (3), a cell centered control volume approach
is used based on the computational grid shown in Fig. 3, and central-difference scheme with
the Jameson type of artificial dissipation is adopted for spatial discretization. An explicit four-
order Runge–Kutta scheme is employed for temporal discretization in the current steady-state
simulation, and an implicit residual smoothing technique is combined. The CFL number is set to
3.0 for all simulation cases. Moreover, a multigird strategy is adopted to accelerate convergence
of the solution.

3.5 CFD Validation

Two experimental S-CO2 configurations in the open literature are adopted here to validate
the prediction accuracy of the CFD solver. The first case is an RIT from Sandia National
Laboratories (SNL) and Barber–Nichols Incorporated (BNI) [29], and its test data at one working
point is utilized here. A single passage of the SNL RIT is modelled and similar numerical setups
to those in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 are arranged. Grids with different node numbers (Ngrid ) are
generated to study the effect of mesh density. Predicted total pressure ratio (πt ) and specific output
work (WT ) of the SNL RIT are shown in Fig. 4. It can be observed when Ngrid is larger than
2 million, variations in both πt and WT are tiny. Meanwhile, compared to experimental data,
i.e., πt,exp = 1.2201 and WT,exp = 11.8032, predicted errors in πt and WT are only 1.41% and
2.10% respectively. Therefore, the level of Ngrid = 3 million is used as a standard for generating
computational mesh for the studied RIT with different seal geometries.
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 941

The second configuration is an S-CO2 annular orifice tested by Kim et al. [30]. A two-
dimensional axisymmetric plane of the test structure is plotted in Fig. 5. Measured total
temperature (Tt,in = 319 K) and total pressure (Pt,in = 10 MPa) are defined at inlet, while static
pressure (Pout ) is specified at outlet. Value of Pout is determined by tested pressure ratios (Pt,in
/Pout ) in experiments. Fig. 6 compares predicted and measured mass flow rates under different
pressure ratios (PR) of outlet pressure to inlet total pressure. When PR is less than 0.74, numerical
calculation results are nearly the same as experimental data, while when PR is greater than 0.74,
predicted values are a bit higher than measured results. The maximum relative error is about 9.0%,
and this occurs at PR being about 0.85. Despite this, numerical results have a generally good
agreement with experimental data. This proves that the CFD method employed in this paper can
accurately evaluate performance of S-CO2 configurations. Therefore, the effects of labyrinth seals
are analyzed below based on numerical calculations of the studied RIT.

Figure 5: Front view of the annular orifice

Figure 6: Predicted and measured mass flow rates of the S-CO2 annular orifice

4 Results and Analysis

4.1 Axial Force and Leakage Mass Flow Rate
The primary goal of using labyrinth seals is to reduce leakage mass flow rate (mL ), which is
defined as the calculated mass flow rate at cavity duct outlet in Fig. 3. Another major concern
942 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

for the RIT is that its impeller endures higher axial force compared to gas turbine or steam
turbine rotors under similar output power. Hence, accurate estimation of the axial force is of
great significance for lengthening the service life of RITs.
Generally, the axial force is related to pressure distribution on impeller backface cavity walls.
Japikse [31] pointed out that pressure in impeller backface cavities can be calculated by assuming
a constant relative total pressure across the seal cavity passage. However, as illustrated in Fig. 7,
relative total pressure has an obvious change from the inlet to the outlet of the impeller backface
cavity. To tackle this issue, pressure is integrated over solid walls of impeller and its backface
cavity to calculate the total axial force (Fax ), so formulation of Fax is:
Fax = F1 − F2 = FT1 + FT2 − F2 (6)
where FT1 is the axial force acting on turbine outlet, FT2 is the axial force on impeller blade and
hub walls, and F2 is that on impeller backface cavity walls. Schematic diagram of each force is
displayed in Fig. 8.

Figure 7: Contours of relative total pressure on the meridional plane of the RIT

Figure 8: Schematic diagram of axial forces

CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 943

4.2 Effects of Labyrinth Seal and Seal Outlet Pressure

In order to demonstrate impacts of the labyrinth seal, Figs. 9 and 10 compare Fax , mL ,
efficiency (η) and expansion ratio (πt ) of the RIT with and without labyrinth seal respectively.
Variable η and πt are defined as [32]:
ht,in − ht,out
η= (7)
ht,in − ht,s,out
π = Pt,in /Pt,out (8)
where ht,in and ht,out are total enthalpy at inlet and outlet, ht,s,out is outlet total enthalpy for an
isentropic expansion condition, Pt,in and Pt,out are total pressure at inlet and outlet. It should be
mentioned since the computational domain includes two outlet boundaries, so ht,out and ht,s,out are
mass-averaged data of theirs values at mainstream outlet and cavity duct outlet.

Figure 9: Comparison of axial force for the RIT with and without seal structure

The seal studied in this section is the datum structure in Tab. 2, and different values of seal
cavity outlet pressure (Pc,out ) are considered in current numerical simulations. It can be first seen
from Figs. 9 and 10 that the labyrinth seal can lower both Fax and mL , which are also reduced
with the increase of Pc,out . Compared to the no seal case, using labyrinth seal leads to maximum
reductions in mL and Fax by 30.97% and 6.61% respectively.
With the increase in Pc,out or decrease in mL , mass flow rate at mainstream outlet (mout )
is increased, as indicated by Fig. 10a. Since the decreasing trend of mout is smaller than the
increasing tendency of mL , mass flow rate at mainstream inlet (min ) is reduced with raising Pc,out .
In addition, Fig. 10b shows that adding seals deteriorates η and expansion ability of the turbine at
some low and high Pc,out conditions. This is because that kinetic energy is dissipated and friction
loss is generated when leakage flow crosses seal cavities. When Pc,out changes from 9.0 to 10.0
MPa, η of the RIT with seals is higher than that without seals. This may offer a guidance for
choosing an appropriate condition for the compressor in Fig. 1.
944 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

(a) (b)

Figure 10: Comparison of performance for the RIT with or without seal structure, (a) leakage
and mainstream mass flow rates, (b) efficiency and expansion ratio

In order to further clarify the influence of Pc,out on Fax , variations of FT1 , FT2 and F2 with
Pc,out are shown in Fig. 11, where F1 is the sum of FT1 and FT2 as implied by Eq. (6) and Fax
is the same as that in Fig. 10. When F1 points to the backface of the impeller, it has a negative
sign and F2 has a positive direction. This also results in a negative value for Fax , so all data in
Fig. 11 are absolute values. As Pc,out increases, pressure difference between inlet and outlet of the
backface cavity becomes smaller, so F2 is enlarged. Since F1 is nearly unchanged for all Pc,out
values, Fax is consequently changed in a descending trend as shown in Figs. 9 and 11.

Figure 11: Effect of seal cavity outlet pressure on axial forces

4.3 Influence of Seal Geometry Parameters

Section 2 introduces main geometrical parameters including the seal clearance and the height,
and number of labyrinth seal teeth. This section will analyze their impacts on seal performance
based on numerical simulations for the S-CO2 RIT.
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 945

4.3.1 Seal Clearance

Four values of s are numerically simulated to examine its influence on seal performance.
Meanwhile, three different values of Pc,out including 6, 8 and 10 MPa are considered in the
simulation. Fig. 12 presents variations of Fax and mL as s increases. It is observed that mL is
nearly proportional to s. This is consistent with the conclusion of Yuan et al. [33]. The reason
for this result can be interpreted from two aspects. First, increasing s not only leads to larger flow
area of leakage low but also weakens the jet effect, and the latter result induces a small cavity
vortex (see cavity flow field in Fig. 15 below) that is usually beneficial to hinder leakage flow.
Secondly, larger s weakens the throttling effect of seal teeth. Due to this, both flow resistance and
energy dissipation are decreased, so mL is increased.

(a) (b)

Figure 12: Effects of the seal clearance, (a) axial force, (b) leakage mass flow rate

Larger s leads to higher mL and hence lowers impeller backface pressure, so the pressure
difference between the inlet and outlet of backface cavity becomes smaller. This results in reduced
force on the impeller backface cavity (F2 in Fig. 11). Since the force acting on the turbine impeller
and outlet (F1 in Fig. 11) is nearly unchanged, Fax is consequently increased with enlarging s, as
demonstrated by Fig. 12a. Therefore, small seal clearance should be chosen as long as require-
ments of safe operation and manufacturing are satisfied. In addition, Fig. 12 also demonstrates
that the effects of s on mL and Fax are the same for all three Pc,out conditions. At a fixed seal
clearance, both mL and Fax are decreased as Pc,out increases. This is consistent with the conclusion
obtained from Figs. 9 and 10a.

4.3.2 Height of the Seal Teeth

With regard to the height of seal teeth (h) shown in Fig. 2, eight values are considered during
CFD simulations. Results of calculated mL and Fax under two Pc,out conditions are presented in
Fig. 13. It is observed that when h is increased in the range from 0.9 to 6.3 mm, mL is rapidly
decreased. However, as h is further increased when it is larger than 6.3 mm, mL has no obvious
change. This indicates that increasing h within a certain range can enlarge the size of cavity vortex
and increase the turbulent kinetic energy of leakage flow, but flow reaches to the chocking point
when h equals 6.3 mm. Similar changing trend is also observed when analyzing the impacts of h
on Fax and Pc,out . Moreover, with the increase of h, the force acting on the impeller working face,
946 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

i.e., F1 , is not obviously changed, but the static pressure in impeller backface cavity is increased.
This leads to an increase in F2 , and ultimately induces a reduction in the axial force (Fax ). As
seal leakage flow reaches the critical state, a flow dynamic equilibrium condition is achieved in the
backface cavity, so the cavity pressure remains unchanged. Predicted data imply that for both the
two conditions of Pc,out , i.e., Pc,out = 6 MPa and Pc,out = 7 MPa, the optimum sealing performance
is achieved when h is 6.3 mm. Under this optimum condition and compared to the datum case
(h = 1.8 mm), mL is decreased by 11.21% and 11.82%, and Fax is reduced by 2.24% and 2.19%
for Pc,out being 6 and 7 MPa respectively.

(a) (b)

Figure 13: Effects of the height of seal teeth, (a) axial force, (b) leakage mass flow rate

4.3.3 Number of the Seal Teeth

Based on the seal geometry shown in Fig. 2, four values of the number of seal teeth (n)
including 4, 5, 6 and 7 are numerically studied under different Pc,out conditions. Since changing
n will influence the axial length of seal cavity passage (L), two schemes are considered. The first
scheme is to keep the distance between two teeth (pitch d in Fig. 2) unchanged and hence
L equals n times d, while the second one is to make L constant and d is L divided by n.
For the first scheme, d is set to 2.0 mm, and for the second one, L is set to be 20 mm. Details
of the investigated cases are summarized in Tab. 3, where S1 and S2 represent Scheme 1 and
Scheme 2, respectively.

Table 3: Cases with different seal teeth number

Cases Scheme n (-) d (mm) L (mm)
Case S1_n4 1 4 2.0 n·d
Case S1_n5 1 5 2.0 n·d
Case S1_n6 1 6 2.0 n·d
Case S1_n7 1 7 2.0 n·d
Case S2_n4 2 4 L/n 20.0
Case S2_n5 2 5 L/n 20.0
Case S2_n6 2 6 L/n 20.0
Case S2_n7 2 7 L/n 20.0
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 947

Fig. 14 shows variations of mL and Fax with n. The case with n being 4 corresponds to
the datum seal configuration in Tab. 2. For the two schemes in Tab. 3 and under all three Pc,out
conditions, with the increase of n, both mL and Fax are continuously decreased. This conclusion is
consistent with that of Kim et al. [34] who studied a stepped labyrinth seal. Meanwhile, compared
to cases of Scheme 1, those of Scheme 2 have higher mL and Fax for all conditions studied.
Reasons for this will be discussed later. In addition, it is also observed from Fig. 14 that for
a fixed value of n, mL and Fax are decreased as Pc,out increases. This is consistent with the
conclusion in Section 4.2. The influences of Pc,out on mL and Fax are more significant than that
of n, as implied by the changing level of mL and Fax when n and Pc,out are altered in Fig. 14.

(a) (b)

Figure 14: Effects of the number of seal teeth, (a) axial force, (b) leakage mass flow rate

To further demonstrate the effect of n, Fig. 15 presents contours of entropy and flow stream-
lines in the second and third cavities of all cases. Flow field in the datum seal cavity is shown in
Fig. 15a, where a vortex is generated in each cavity due to a contraction effect. It not only induces
two smaller vortices at the upper corners of the cavity, but also imposes flow resistance on the
leakage fluid. Large entropy area mainly exists in cavity corners and the borders between leakage
and cavity fluids due to the difference in velocity, i.e., the friction effect. Meanwhile, entropy is
increased from the upstream (right) cavity to the downstream (left) one because of friction loss.
To analyze the impact of n, comparison can be conducted from horizontal and vertical views
of Fig. 15. From the horizontal view, it can be observed that as n increases, the variation of
entropy in the cavity becomes smaller compared to the datum case in Fig. 15a, see Figs. 15b, 15d
and 15f for Scheme 1 and Figs. 15c, 15e and 15g for Scheme 2. From the vertical view, it is seen
that under a specific condition of n, the Scheme 1 approach has lower entropy than the Scheme
2 arrangement. Sun et al. [35] denoted that mL and n have a relationship as below:

APt,c,in 1 − (1/π )2
mL =  (9)
Rg Tt,c,in n + ln π
where A is the flow area at seal clearance, Tt,c,in is total temperature at the seal cavity inlet, and
π is a pressure ratio that is defined as
π = Pt,c,in /Pc,out (10)
948 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

where Pt,c,in is total pressure at the seal cavity inlet. In addition, if the change in temperature of
leakage flow can be neglected, computing formulation for the entropy increase can be simplified as
Δs = Rg ln π (11)

According to Eqs. (9)–(11), smaller s indicates smaller π and Pt,c,in if Pc,out is fixed.
Hence, larger n and lower Pt,c,in lead to less mL . This is consistent with the conclusion obtained
from Fig. 14. Meanwhile, since entropy variations of Scheme 1 cases are smaller than those of
Scheme 2 cases, mL of Scheme 1 is lower than that of Scheme 2 for a fixed teeth number. This is
also in agreement with results in Fig. 14. In addition, the impacts of n on mL can also be analyzed
from the prospective of energy dissipation. Since leakage fluid experiences sequential acceleration-
deceleration process in the cavity duct, so increasing n induces more energy dissipation and flow
resistance. Meanwhile, with the increase of n, the cavity passage of Scheme 1 approach is longer
than that of Scheme 2 arrangement, so friction loss is higher in Scheme 1 cases. This leads to the
result in Fig. 14 that mL of Scheme 1 cases is lower than that of Scheme 2 case.

Figure 15: Flow fields in the second and third cavities (Pc,out = 6 MPa), (a) case S1_n4 and
case S2_n4, (b) case S1_n5, (c) case S2_n5, (d) case S1_n6, (e) case S2_n6, (f) case S1_n7,
(g) case S2_n7

4.3.4 Simple Sensitivity Analysis of Seal Geometry Parameters

In order to pinpoint which parameter has the most important effects on seal performance,
Fig. 16 compares reductions in mL and improvements in η when changing s, h and n under
different Pc,out conditions. Variables mL and η represent changes in mL and η of each case
relative to those of the datum case, where s = 0.2 mm, h = 1.8 mm, n = 4 and Pc,out = 6.0 MPa.
So negative mL and positive η values demonstrate improved seal performance.
It can be observed that for a specific condition of Pc,out , the changing trend of mL with
h is weaker than that with s and n. A maximum reduction in mL of 62.14% is obtained when
s takes the minimum value (0.13 mm) under the maximum Pc,out condition (10 MPa), where mL
is reduced by 44.10%–48.85% with increasing n to 5–7. For the RIT efficiency, a maximum η
of 4.23% is obtained when s = 0.13 mm and Pc,out = 10 MPa, and under this Pc,out condition,
η is increased by about 4.0% for n = 5–7. Therefore, among the three seal geometry parameters,
decreasing seal clearance is the most effective approach to improve seal performance.
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 949

Figure 16: Impacts of seal geometry to performance, (a) seal clearance vs. leakage mass flow,
(b) seal teeth height vs. leakage mass flow, (c) seal teeth number vs. leakage mass flow, (d) seal
clearance vs. efficiency, (e) seal teeth height vs. efficiency, (f) seal teeth number vs. efficiency

4.4 Effect of the Seal Teeth Shape

In order to analyze the influence of teeth shape on leakage mass flow rate and axial force,
four types of seal teeth are constructed. They create different seal cavities in the shape of
triangle, rectangle, a right-angled trapezoid and isosceles trapezoid, as shown in Fig. 17. The
labyrinth seal in Fig. 17b is regarded as a standard geometry, and values of s, h and L are kept
constant. Consequently, the shape of seal teeth or seal cavities is determined by changing a, b
and d. Numerical simulations are conducted for the S-CO2 RIT with these seals under different
Pc,out conditions.
Fig. 18 compares predicted performance of the four seal geometries. It is observed that the
isosceles trapezoidal cavity has the lowest mL and Fax , followed by the right-angled trapezoidal
and the rectangular cavities. The triangular cavity in Fig. 17a has the worst seal performance and
the largest axial force. Variations in min , mout , η and πt are small for the RIT with triangular,
right-angled trapezoidal, and rectangular seal cavities. For the isosceles trapezoidal cavity case,
η is reduced at low Pc,out conditions, but is improved when Pc,out is larger than 9 MPa. These
results also provide a standard for choosing appropriate conditions of Pc,out . In addition, Fig. 18
indicates that mL and Fax are continuously decreased with the increase of Pc,out for all cases.
950 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 17: Schematic diagram of labyrinth seals with different shapes of seal cavities, (a) triangular
cavity, (b) right-angled trapezoidal cavity, (c) isosceles trapezoidal cavity, (d) rectangular cavity

Figure 18: Effects of seal teeth shape, (a) axial force, (b) leakage mass flow rates, (c) mainstream
inlet and outlet mass flow rates, (d) turbine efficiency and expansion ratio
CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3 951

Flow field in each seal cavity is shown in Fig. 19, and it has similar properties as that in
Fig. 15. The isosceles trapezoidal cavity in Fig. 19c has the least variation in entropy, and the
corresponding corner vertex has the weakest intensity. Therefore, as demonstrated in Fig. 15,
the lower the entropy change, the smaller the axial force and leakage mass flow rate. It is also
concluded that the center vortex has significant impacts on entropy change and seal performance.
Therefore, for the RIT studied in this paper, the seal that forms the isosceles trapezoidal cavity
has the best sealing performance.

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 19: Flow fields in the second and third cavities with different shapes of seal teeth,
(a) triangular cavity, (b) isosceles trapezoidal cavity, (c) right-angled trapezoidal cavity,
(d) rectangular cavity

5 Conclusions
In order to control leakage flow of the impeller backface cavity and decrease the associated
axial force, CFD simulations have been conducted for an S-CO2 RIT. Effects of seal cavity outlet
pressure, seal clearance, height, number and shape of seal teeth are examined. Main conclusions
are summarized below.
Compared to the no-seal case, using the labyrinth seal can reduce leakage mass flow rate (mL )
and axial force acting on the impeller backface (Fax ) by 30.97% and 6.61% respectively. With the
increase of cavity outlet pressure, efficiency of the RIT with seals is higher than that without seals.
Larger seal clearance leads to wider flow area of leakage fluid, and weakens the jet and
throttling effects. Therefore, the flow resistance of seals to leakage flow and the energy dissipation
of leakage are reduced. This makes mL and Fax increased with enlarging the seal clearance.
Moreover, increasing the height and number of seal teeth are beneficial to decrease mL and Fax .
Leakage flow reaches to its choking point when the teeth height is enlarged to a certain value
(6.3 mm for the studied case), beyond which mL and Fax are nearly kept constant. Increasing
the number of seal teeth leads to smaller entropy change in seal cavities and more frequent
acceleration-deceleration process for leakage fluid. Among these parameters, decreasing the seal
clearance is the most effective way to improve seal performance.
The seal that create isosceles trapezoidal cavity has the best seal performance when compared
to other types of seal teeth. This is ascribed to complete development of the cavity vortex, which
is helpful to hinder leakage flow. In addition, for all cases studied in the paper, mL and Fax are
decreased with the increase in seal cavity outlet pressure.
952 CMES, 2021, vol.126, no.3

Funding Statement: This paper is founded by the National Key R&D Program of China (Contract
No. 2016YFB060010), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51606026 and
51876021) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding
the present study.

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