Experimental verification of a secondary recirculation zone in a labyrinth seal

The existence of a secondary recirculation zone inside the cavities of a labyrinth seal operating at a Reynolds number of 15,000 and a Taylor number of 10,300 has been experimentally verified. A three-dimensional laser Doppler anemometer system was used to measure the complete mean velocity and Reynolds stress tensor distributions in the first, third, fifth and seventh cavities of a seven cavity labyrinth seal which had a clearance of 1.27 mm.