In this study a general Galerkin FE formulation of the incompressible Reynolds equation is derived for lubrication analyses of noncontacting mechanical face seals. Then, the formulation is applied to analyze the flexibly mounted stator­type reactor coolant pump seals of local nuclear power plants, which have deep straight grooves or plane coning on their primary seal ring faces. Their various lubrication performances have been predicted. Results show that the analyzed deep straight groove seal should have a net coning of less than 0.6 to satisfy the leakage limit. And for the same amount of equilibrium opening force the plane coning seal requires to have a 3 times higher dimensionless coning than the deep straight groove seal.