Design of sealing structure and analysis of the flow field in micro internal combustion swing engine

A multistage groove sealing structure in Micro Internal Combustion Swing Engine (MICSE) was designed. By machining several grooves on the center-swing, it provides non-contacting control of internal leakage. The sealing principle of this structure may be described as follows. Gas at high pressure enters through the clearance of adjacent grooves to accelerate, then expands isentropically in the grooves. Once crossing several such grooves, gas emerges at the other end of the sealing structure at significantly reduced pressure. Numerical simulations were utilized to analyze the influences of pressure ratio and groove depth on leakage characteristics. The results demonstrate that at pressure ratio smaller than 2.0, turbulence eddy dissipation process in grooves cannot dissipate kinetic energy obtained during the throttling process completely, which results in poor sealing effect, at pressure ratio lager than 2.5, the two processes reach dynamic balance and sealing effect no longer changes. There is an optimal value in groove depth, undersize or oversize may lead to imperfect throttling effect or turbulence eddy dissipation process.