Sealing characteristics of spring-energized seals for hydraulic-driven piston compressors

This paper studies the sealing performance and wear laws of spring-energized seals for a two-stage hydraulic-driven piston compressor system, aiming to address the issue of insufficient service life of the seal under oil-free operation. A thermal-structural coupling simulation model is established to investigate the influence of temperature and force on the sealing performance of spring-energized seals. The results show that the strain calculation error of the coupling simulation model is 8.296%, which is better than that of the single structural model (20.32%). The error between the coupling simulation result and the experimental result in the 150-h wear test is 2.58%, reflecting the accuracy of the model in wear prediction. Research on the influence of discharge temperature on the wear of spring-energized seals shows that a 60 °C increase in temperature leads to a 14% decrease in the life of spring-energized seals, indicating that high-temperature resistance is one of the important factors in material selection for spring-energized seals.