Quantitative Study on Performance of W-shaped Metal Sealing Ring under Working Temperature

The structural parameters of the metal sealing ring have direct impacts on its leakage rate and stiffness. Reasonable design and selection about the wall thickness, outer diameter, and wave trough radius of the sealing ring, as well as other parameters, can enable the ring to have superior performance. In this work, finite element software is used to simulate the relevant performance of the W-shaped metal sealing ring with five different structures. The corresponding stiffness and leakage amount concerning different compression and working temperatures are obtained. And the validity of the simulation results is verified through experiments. Aiming to provide a theoretical reference basis for the forward design of the sealing ring, the axial stiffness is fitted with a formula using MATLAB. Based on the mathematical model of parallel circular plates, explore the calculation method to determine the leakage amount of the W-shaped sealing ring. The results show that the maximum error between the tested stiffness and the one calculated by the fitted seal ring axial stiffness formula is 6.70%, the maximum error between the calculated leakage and the tested leakage is 5.66%. Under the working condition that the gas works as the sealing medium, the sealing performance of the W-shaped metal sealing ring is improved with the elevated working temperature.