Investigation of Piston Ring Seal Characteristics for High-Pressure Hidrogen Compressor

摘要

We developed a test equipment for piston rings for investigations of low-leak piston rings to enable developing small high-pressure hydrogen compressors for hydrogen stations. These stations will supply high-pressure hydrogen gas to fuel-cell automobiles. The equipment can be used to measure the pressure in the test chamber between piston rings in a reciprocating piston and the amount of leakage during one cycle. We measured the performance of straight-cut piston rings with this equipment. We found that the higher the pressure, the more easily the piston rings move and that the leakage flow begins to choke when the pressure reaches 5 MPa.