The determination of the leakage and consequently the friction factor is an important part of analyzing the flow through a seal. This is done experimentally by means of a flat plate tester, which allows for the simplified representation of the seal pattern on a flat plate surface tested under a range of clearances and pressure drops. The setup mounts a smooth plate opposite a second plate which may be smooth or have a roughened surface while the separation between plates is held constant. The present study analyzes the phenomenon of friction factor 'upset' ? wherein it was seen that as the pressure drop across the parallel plates is increased, there is a sudden increase in the friction factor (i.e. a decrease in flow rate) at a certain Reynolds number and for any further increase in the pressure differential, the friction factor shows the expected trend and decreases slowly. This phenomenon was initially believed to be an anomaly in the rig and was attributed to choking at an upstream flow control valve. The present author differs from that view and hypothesized that the reason for the abrupt change is linked to the flow mechanics of the system and the current study analyzes the same. Preliminary analysis of available data has established that the cause for the 'upset' was not related to the switch from a normal mode resonance driven by the Helmholtz frequency of the cavities on the stator to a shear layer instability, as was seen earlier by Ha. The friction factor jump for this case is therefore proposed to be due to a change of the instability modes as the fluid passes over the cavities in the plate. A detailed analysis of the physics of the flow will be carried out via a numerical simulation using a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model from ANSYS Fluent. Results will be validated through comparisons with experimental data from the flat plate test rig.

Rotordynamic instability problems in turbomachinery have become more important in recent years due to rotordynamic components with higher speeds and higher power densities. These features typically lead to increased instability risk in rotor dynamic components as fluids-structure interactions take place. In addition, critical damage of rotordynamic components can result from high level vibrations of supporting bearing system, where the reduced rotor speed can lead to system operating near the rotor critical speed. Therefore, increased accuracy in modeling of rotordynamic components is required to predict the potential instability issues in high performance rotordynamic design. The instability issue may potentially be eliminated in design stage by varying the characteristics of the unstable components. One such turbomachinery component is the annular pressure seal. The annular pressure seals are specifically designed to prevent the fluid leakage from high pressure stage to low pressure stage in turbomachinery. Typical annular pressure seals have two different flow regions, an annular jet-flow region between the rotor and stator, and cylindrical or circumferential indentions on the stator/rotor surface that serve as cavities where flow recirculation occurs. As the working fluid enters the cavities and recirculates, the kinetic energy is reduced, resulting in a reduction of leakage flow. The current challenge is to model with higher precision the interaction between the rotordynamic components and the working fluid. In this dissertation, this challenge was overcome by developing a hybrid Bulk Flow/CFD method to compute rotordynamic responses for the annular pressure seals. In addition, design of experiments studies were performed to relate the surface patterning with the resulting rotordynamic response for the annular pressure seals, in which several different geometry specifications were investigated. This study on annular pressure seal design generated regression models for rotordynamic coefficients that can be used as optimization guidelines. Research topics related to the annular pressure seals were presented in this dissertation as well. The reduced order model of both hole-pattern seals and labyrinth seals were investigated. The results showed that the flow field representing the flow dynamics in annular pressure seals can be expressed as a combination of first three proper orthogonal decomposition modes. In addition, supercritical state of carbon dioxide (sCO2) process fluid was examined as the working fluid in a preliminary study to better understand the effects on annular pressure seals. The results showed that the performance and stability in the annular pressure seals using sCO2 as process fluid can both be improved. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation focused on understanding the correlations between surface patterning and rotordynamic responses in the annular pressure seals. The annular pressure seals are a specific type of rotordynamic component that was designed to prevent the fluid leakage from high pressure stage to low pressure stage in turbomachinery. As the working fluid enters the cavities and recirculates, the kinetic energy is reduced, resulting in a reduction of leakage flow through the annular pressure seals. Rotordynamic instability becomes an issue that may be related to the annular pressure seals in some cases. In recent years, rotordynamic components with higher rotor speeds and higher power densities are commonly used in industrial applications. These features could lead to increased instability risk in rotor-bearing systems as fluids-structure interactions take place. Therefore, high precision modeling of the rotodynamic components is required to predict the instability issues in high performance rotordynamic design. The instability issue may potentially be eliminated in design stage by varying the characteristics of the potentially unstable components. In this study, the surface patterning and rotordynamic responses were investigated for several different annular pressure seal models with a hybrid Bulk Flow/Computational Fluid Dynamics method. This dissertation provides for the first time regression models for rotordynamic coefficients that can be used as optimization guidelines. Research topics related to the annular pressure seals were presented in this dissertation as well. The reduced order model of both hole-pattern seals and labyrinth seals were investigated. The results showed that the flow field representing the flow dynamics in annular pressure seals can be expressed as a combination of first three proper orthogonal decomposition modes. In addition, supercritical state of carbon dioxide (sCO2) process fluid was examined to better understand the effects of working fluid on annular pressure seals. The results showed that the performance and stability in the annular pressure seals using sCO2 as process fluid can both be improved.