Labyrinth seals are used in rotating equipment to restrict cooling flow between rotating and stationary components. Rotational speeds are so high that viscous heating is an important feature that cannot be overlooked. The cooling flow, while necessary to prevent the overheating of the seal, also reduces some efficiency of the equipment, which operates at high temperatures. One of the biggest problems in the design of labyrinth seals is to accurately predict this temperature rise of the cooling flow across the labyrinth seal. FLUENT can be used to understand this phenomena.

Contours of total temperature at a pressure ratio of 1.5