The sealing surfaces subjected to the hydrostatic load from the sealed fluid can deform to such an extent that leakage occurs when the sealed fluid pressure is sufficiently high, and this critical pressure that the seal can sustain without leakage is a fundamental aspect of the seal design. This paper presents a new numerical method based on the bisection algorithm and the boundary element method, which can be utilized to capture the critical pressure with high accuracy. The present method is employed to study the relationship between the critical pressure and the non-planar geometry of the sealing surfaces, under a wide range of loading conditions. The results show that the critical pressure can be acquired from the surface’s dry contact state with a dimensionless correction factor.
A finite element model of a static seal assembled in its housing has been built and is utilized to study how the seal deforms under varying loading conditions. The total contact load on the sealing surface is balanced by the sealed fluid pressure and the friction between the seal and the housing sidewall perpendicular to the sealing surface. The effect of the sealed fluid pressure between the sealing surfaces was investigated and the simulation showed that the surface profile is distorted due to the hydrostatic pressure. We study the distorted contact profile with varying sealed fluid pressure and propose five parameters to describe the corresponding contact pressure profile. One of these parameters, overshoot pressure, a measure of the difference between maximum contact pressure and the sealed fluid pressure, is an indicator of sealing performance. The simulations performed show different behaviors of the overshoot pressure with sealed fluid pressure for cosinusoidal and parabolic surfaces with the same peak to valley (PV) value.
The threshold condition for leakage inception is of great interest to many engineering applications, and it is essential for seal design. In the current study, the leakage threshold is studied by means of a numerical method for a mechanical contact problem between an elastic bi-sinusoidal surface and a rigid flat surface. The coalesce process of the contact patches is first investigated, and a generalized form of solution for the relation between the contact area ratio and the average applied pressure is acquired. The current study shows that the critical value of the average applied pressure and the corresponding contact area required to close the percolation path can be represented as a power law of a shape parameter, if the effect of the hydrostatic load from the pressurized fluid is ignored. With contact patches merged under a constant applied load, the contact breakup process is investigated with elevated sealed fluid pressure condition, and it is shown that the leakage threshold is a function of the excess pressure, which is defined as a ratio between the average applied pressure and the critical pressure under dry contact conditions. Graphical abstract
The threshold condition for leakage inception is of great interest to many engineering applications, and it is essential for seal design. In the current study, the leakage threshold is studied by means of a numerical method for a mechanical contact problem between an elastic bisinusoidal surface and a rigid flat surface. The coalesce process of the contact patches is first investigated, and a generalized form of solution for the relation between the contact area ratio and the average applied pressure is acquired. The current study shows that the critical value of the average applied pressure, required to close the percolation path, can be represented as a power law of a shape parameter if the effect of the hydrostatic load from the pressurized fluid is ignored. With contact patches merged under a constant applied load, the contact breakup process is investigated under elevated sealed fluid pressure conditions, and it is shown that the leakage threshold is a function of the excess pressure, which is defined as a ratio between the average applied pressure and the critical pressure under dry contact conditions.
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