The ABC of Mechanical Seals

"Nothing makes people more suspicious than ignorance," said Francis Bacon, the English philosopher. Heeding his words in today's world has become more or less a question of time- time to process the deluge of multifarious information descending on us daily, not to mention the time to take it all in. It would hardly surprise me, therefore, if some people passed off this book as just another "technical tome" and banned it to the shelf for good. Fearing just such a reaction, we decided against producing a conventional compendium of technical articles, the one longer that, the other. Instead we made it our goal to draw together the terms and technical relationships of mechanical seal technology and to present them in alphabetical order as a dictionary. The numerous cross references are a clear indication of the subject's complexity, and of the occasional difficulty in drawing the line between individual key words. Knowing that this work is therefore neither perfect nor complete, I would be grateful to receive your criticism and help. Please tell us what's missing and please suggest ways to make improvements. Think of the BURGMANN Dictionary as the opening of a dialogue that is intended to lead to greater understanding of a relatively small but highly important machine component ... the mechanical seal with its seemingly infinite variations of design and application. At this point 1 should like to express my thanks to the many members of staff, without whose knowledge and dedication - beyond their normal daily work - this book world not have been possible. (Feodor Burgmann)