Patent ID: 7604241

Claim:
A pressure seal for a flow path comprising: a pair of plates spaced from and extending generally parallel to one another and extending in spaced generally parallel planes; a brush seal between said plates extending in a plane between and generally parallel to planes containing said plates and including a plurality of bristles having round cross-sectional shapes, with tips extending beyond distal ends of the plates; a first set of a plurality of beams of square or rectilinear cross section, stacked circumferentially one against the other between one of the plates and said brush seal, such that lateral surfaces of adjacent beams are in substantial contact, and a second set of a plurality of beams stacked circumferentially one against the other between another of the plates and brush seal, said first and second sets of beams extending beyond distal ends of said plates and in a plane generally parallel to the planes containing said plates and said brush seal and terminating short of the bristle tips, wherein said bristles have a flexibility greater than the flexibility of said first and second sets of beams, and wherein each beam of said first and second sets of beams has a cross-sectional dimension in excess of about twenty times the cross-sectional dimension of each bristle.