Shaft seal assembly

Abstract

A shaft seal assembly wherein the end portions of two coaxial shafts carry two components of a torque transmitting unit. One component is a disc which is eccentrically secured to the end portion of the respective shaft and extends into an eccentric circular recess of the other component which is coaxially affixed to the end portion of the associated shaft. A cup-shaped sealing element is installed in the recess to separate the two components from each other, and its annular portion is sealingly affixed to one end portion of a bellows whose other end portion is sealingly secured to one end wall of a housing. The shaft which carries the one component is rotatably journalled in the one end wall and the other shaft is rotatably journalled in a second end wall of the housing. One or more antifriction radial or thrust bearings and/or one or more friction bearings can be interposed between the other component and the housing and/or between the cup-shaped element and the two components to reduce bending and/or axial stresses upon the shafts and/or torsional stresses which are transmitted to the bellows when one of the shafts rotates or performs oscillatory movements in order to transmit torque to the other shaft by way of the two components and due to the fact that the one component is eccentric with reference to and is received in the eccentric recess of the other component.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.