Abstract: To study the surface roughness effect on the load-carrying capacity (LCC), tribological performance and sealing performance of the textured mechanical seals, a mixed lubrication model was established based on the finite element method. Considering the microscopic and macroscopic film cavitation effect and asperities contact, the tribological properties and sealing performance of circular-pored mechanical seals with the deterministic non-Gaussian distributed asperities on the face were studied. The results show that, for the mechanical face seals operating in the full-film lubrication zone, the larger the σ value of the non-Gaussian rough textured surfaces, the better the friction-reducing effect was and the larger the leakage rate and the transferring speed of the mixed lubrication zone to the full film lubrication zone were. The skewness and kurtosis values of the non-Gaussian surface had an effect on the LCC, lubrication performance and sealing performance, but no specific law was found. The surface textures showed the effect of increasing friction in the mixed lubrication zone, while exhibited the anti-friction effect in the full-film lubrication zone.