MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LEAK THROUGH

ELASTOMER - METAL INTERFACE

Jithin Devan Padincharayil, Prof. C. Lakshmana Rao
Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Introduction
Elastomeric seals are widely used devices to prevent fluid
leakage. Commonly used elastomeric seals are shown in
Fig. 1:
V-Packing U-Cup T-Seals

Image courtesy:
O-Ring S-Ring ORingStore.org
Figure 1: Commonly used elastomeric seals
Figure 4: Gas pressure v/s Leak rate: FKM Specimen
In spite of their importance and widespread usage, The leak initiation gas pressures for each sealing pressure
leakage and failure of elastomeric seals remain to be a are identified and plotted for all three specimens as
poorly understood phenomenon. shown in Fig. 5:
The leakage is classified into seal leakage through
interface and seal leakage through diffusion. Seal leakage
through the interface is studied deeply in this project.

Objectives
Experimentally study the effect of following parameters
on gas leak through elastomer metal interface.
Figure 5: Sealing Pressure v/s Gas pressure
1. Sealing Pressure ()
2. Gas Pressure () Numerical Studies
3. Material Properties of elastomer Material characterization is done using uniaxial test. DIC
Numerically simulate the experimental results. technique is used to calculate strain. The test data is given
Experimental Studies to ABAQUS. Mooney Rivlin hyperelastic model is used.
Top die displacement & Gas pressure are given as loads.
Fig. 2 shows the schematic cross section diagram and
RP RP
actual experiment rig.

Figure 6: Von-Mises stress plot: (a) Compression, (b) Gas Pressure

The reaction force on RP equal to zero can be defined as
the gas leak criterion.
Figure 2: Schematic cross section and actual experiment rig
The experiment rig is placed in a CTM and pneumatic
connections were made as shown in Fig. 3.
Pressure gauge
Pressure cylinder
Figure 7: Reaction Force on Reference Point: FKM Specimen

Conclusions
Experiment Rig As the gas pressure increases, the leak rate increases
exponentially. From Fig. 5, the relation between sealing
Inverted flask Load control
Figure 3: Complete experimental setup pressure and gas pressure are found. = seal / gas
Pressurized Nitrogen is applied from the cylinder. The NBR = 0.4010 HNBR = 0.4119 FKM = 0.3878
volume gas that leaks through this sealing interface is As shown in Fig. 7, by the end of Load step-4 the reaction
measured for various combinations of elastomer force on RP is zero. That implies the seal is leaked. Hence,
specimens, contact pressure and gas pressure using an experiment and numerical studies are matching.
inverted graduated flask.
References
NBR, HNBR and FKM elastomer specimens are used for
experiment. Gas pressure v/s Leak rate graph at different 1. Liu, Q., Wang, Z., Lou, Y. and Suo, Z., (2014). Elastic leak of
sealing pressures for FKM specimen is shown in Fig. 4: a seal. Extreme Mechanics Letters, 1, 54-61