Material characteristics of mechanical seal in shaft end of aviation kerosene pump

In order to select the mechanical seal materials suitable for working in aviation kerosene, the frictional characteristics of these materials were studied. Through the friction-wear tester, the friction coefficients and the temperature rise of materials were obtained under different working conditions and surface roughness. The microscopic wear morphology was observed for three groups of typical matching materials under the atomic force microscope(AFM). The differences between abrasive wear and adhesive wear were analyzed, and the key parameters of wears were calculated. It found that, when the conditions were set, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) was the best soft material, and the hard materials got the best friction performance when their surface roughness equaled 0.05. Besides, different materials had few differences in their performance. It also found that PTFE caused the least amount of element migration on hard surface which, in turn, caused the smallest single abrasive grain grooves. The adhesive wear caused the migration of surface height distribution function. In addition, the adhesive volume and average adhesive thickness were inferred by discretization solving formula.