In rotating machinery, such as wind machines, bearings are used to support rotating components with as little friction as possible. To reduce friction, lubricants are often used in the bearings, but such lubricants must be retained within the bearings. Leakage can lead to increased friction, failure of the bearings, and contamination of areas and/or products adjacent the bearings. Thus, seals must be employed to retain the lubricant within the bearings.
Sealing in the bearing art can be done in a number of ways. For example, some bearings employ contacting seal systems, such as lip seal systems. These types of seals are not desirable for large diameter applications for several reasons. Because of the degree of wear these types of seals experience, the seals tend to weaken, particularly in the case of elastomeric materials. In the case of large gaskets, replacement is difficult, if at all possible, and very costly. To ease the difficulty of replacement, some known systems segment or subdivide such gaskets rather than making them a single piece. However, segmented gaskets can have issues, such as leakage at segment joints, with the seals they are supposed to provide, particularly along the segment joints.
An alternative to the problematic contacting seal system is the labyrinth seal. Various known labyrinth seals have been employed to reduce or eliminate the flow of fluids from one side of a seal to the other side of the seal. For example, in centrifugal air compressors, labyrinth seals are often employed to prevent the entry of lubricating oil into the compression chamber from bearings. However, for large diameter situations, labyrinth seals have not been economically practical since the required manufacturing tolerances are so precise. Additionally, because known labyrinth seals rely on the formation of vortices in the fluid against which they are employed, they typically will only greatly reduce, rather than eliminate, fluid leakage, which is not desirable in some installations.
To overcome the leakage of labyrinth seals, certain known installations instead employ pumping gaskets that push the fluid back toward the fluid reservoir (the bearing). However, known gaskets that actively pump lubricant, particularly in large-diameter applications, are expensive, difficult to manufacture, and are susceptible to defects.