US 4,300,772 AGranted

Sealing arrangement for rotatably mounted shafts

AssigneePintsch Bamag Antriebs-und Verkehrstechnik GmbH

InventorJurgen Nissel

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Abstract

A sealing arrangement is provided for a shaft rotatably mounted in a housing which is operable in an abrasive media such as sandy sea water or the like. The sealing arrangement includes a main seal and an auxiliary seal fitted around the shaft with a chamber formed between these seals for accommodating a separating medium. The chamber includes a feed opening and supply arrangement for continuously communicating pressurized separating medium, such as air or clean water to said chamber. An outlet opening is provided at the bottom of the chamber for accommodating exhaust of abrasive media which may accumulate in the chamber during non-operating conditions. The separating medium supply and exhaust, as well as the configuration of the auxiliary seal is such as to assure continuous escape of a portion of the separating medium through the auxiliary seal during operation, thereby preventing ingress of the surrounding abrasive medium into the chamber during operations via the auxiliary seal.

Claims11

Dependent claims

Sealing arrangement for a shaft rotatably mounted in a housing, and operable in abrasive media, comprising:

a main seal and an auxiliary seal fitting around the shaft and extending between respective surfaces associated with said shaft and said housing,
a chamber formed between the main and auxiliary seals by housing and shaft parts, said chamber being located at the side of the main seal closest to the auxiliary seal,
a feed opening for continuously communicating a pressurized environmentally harmless separating medium to said chamber,
an outlet opening in said chamber for the separating medium,
and pressure medium supply means for supplying said environmentally harmless separating medium to said feed opening under pressure,
said pressure medium supply means and the dimensions of the feed and outlet openings being correlated to one another to assure that a certain amount of the separating medium continuously escapes from the chamber through the auxiliary seal during operation of the shaft to prevent ingress of the surrounding abrasive media into the chamber,
and wherein said outlet opening is provided at the point in the chamber which is lowest in the operating position of the sealing arrangement whereby pollutants which are in the chamber can be flushed from the latter.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.