Rotary seal arrangement and rotary seal with recirculation function

A rotary seal arrangement having a recirculation function, comprising:

• a first and a second machine element, spaced apart to form a sealing gap and movable relative to each other about a rotation axis, the first machine element comprising a seal-holding structure and the second machine element comprising a sealing surface;
• a rotary seal for sealing a high pressure side H pressurizable with a fluid against a low pressure side N of the sealing gap, the rotary seal being held on the seal-holding structure of the first machine element and having a sealing lip, the front side of which faces the sealing surface and abuts at least in sections in a dynamically sealing manner against the sealing surface of the second machine element;
• wherein the sealing lip has pockets on its rear side pointing away from the sealing surface or on its end face facing the high-pressure side H, which are arranged spaced apart both from the rear side and the front side of the sealing lip;
• wherein the sealing lip in case of rear side arranged pockets is tensioned against the sealing surface by an elastically deformable pretensioning ring surrounding the sealing lip on its rear side circumferentially, and in case of frontally arranged pockets, by a resilience inherent in the material of the rotary seal;
• wherein the sealing in case of rear side arranged pockets, each pocket has a width that extends through the entire width of the rear side surface and the pockets are trapezoidal in shape;
• wherein the pockets arranged in the circumferential direction of the rotary seal are spaced apart from each other and laterally limited in the circumferential direction by a side wall portion of the sealing lip, which is arranged relative to the circumferential direction of the sealing lip at least partially under an acute angle a obliquely to the high pressure side H, so that the sealing lip in the circumferential direction of the rotary seal abuts the sealing surface with a contact pressure profile, through which in a relative movement of the two machine parts a recirculation directed to the high pressure side H of fluid passed between the sealing lip and the sealing surface is affected.