The seal performance was researched on the condition of grooved surface with waviness and taper on a noncontacting face seal.Under laminar flow and steadystate,twodimensional (2D) Reynolds equation based on polar coordination and the quantitative solution were used for getting the influence of sealing performance due to considering the grooved surface with waviness and taper so as to revel the tendency of the three seal performance parameters of leakage rate,opening force and liquid film stiffness.The research shows that when taper is fixed,with increasing of waviness,the leakage rate is increased and the rigidity of liquid film is increased little,but the opening force is influenced by the grooved surfaces.Among which the opening force of the square and open spiral groove surfaces is tended to decrease gradually,that of close spiral groove surface is tended to increase first and then decrease,finally,and that of three kinds of grooved surfaces are finally tended towards the same value.when waviness is fixed,along with the increasing of tapper,the leakage rate and opening force are increased,and the rigidity of liquid film is decreased.On a noncontacting face seal,the optimum selecting of the grooved surface with waviness and taper is helpful for ensuring the noncontacting state of seal and improve the reliability and the working life of face seal.