Finite Element Analysis offers knowledge to predict how a seal product will perform underneath certain situations and might help determine areas where the design may be improved without having to test multiple prototypes.
Here we explain how our engineers use FEA to design optimal sealing solutions for our buyer purposes.
Why can we use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
Our engineers encounter many important sealing purposes with complicating influences. Envelope size, housing limitations, shaft speeds, pressure/temperature rankings and chemical media are all utility parameters that we should consider when designing a seal.
In isolation, the impact of those utility parameters is fairly easy to predict when designing a sealing resolution. However, when pressure gauge ไฮ ด รอ ลิ ค compound numerous these factors (whilst usually pushing a few of them to their higher limit when sealing) it is crucial to predict what’s going to occur in actual application conditions. Using FEA as a software, our engineers can confidently design after which manufacture strong, reliable, and cost-effective engineered sealing options for our clients.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) permits us to understand and quantify the effects of real-world situations on a seal half or meeting. It can be utilized to determine potential causes the place sub-optimal sealing efficiency has been observed and may additionally be used to guide the design of surrounding parts; particularly for products corresponding to diaphragms and boots the place contact with adjoining elements may have to be averted.
The software additionally permits drive information to be extracted so that compressive forces for static seals, and friction forces for dynamic seals could be accurately predicted to help customers in the last design of their products.
How will we use FEA?
Starting with a 2D or 3D mannequin of the initial design concept, we apply the boundary conditions and constraints provided by a buyer; these can embrace pressure, pressure, temperatures, and any utilized displacements. A appropriate finite factor mesh is overlaid onto the seal design. This ensures that the areas of most curiosity return accurate results. We can use bigger mesh sizes in areas with less relevance (or decrease ranges of displacement) to minimise the computing time required to solve the model.
Material properties are then assigned to the seal and hardware components. Most sealing materials are non-linear; the quantity they deflect beneath an increase in pressure varies depending on how giant that pressure is. This is not like the straight-line relationship for many metals and rigid plastics. This complicates the fabric model and extends the processing time, but we use in-house tensile take a look at facilities to precisely produce the stress-strain materials fashions for our compounds to ensure the evaluation is as consultant of real-world efficiency as potential.
What happens with the FEA data?
The evaluation itself can take minutes or hours, depending on the complexity of the part and the vary of working circumstances being modelled. Behind the scenes within the software program, many lots of of 1000’s of differential equations are being solved.
The outcomes are analysed by our skilled seal designers to determine areas where the design could be optimised to match the precise requirements of the applying. Examples of these necessities may embody sealing at very low temperatures, a have to minimise friction levels with a dynamic seal or the seal may need to face up to excessive pressures with out extruding; whatever sealing system properties are most essential to the shopper and the application.
Results for the finalised proposal can be introduced to the customer as force/temperature/stress/time dashboards, numerical knowledge and animations displaying how a seal performs throughout the analysis. This data can be utilized as validation data in the customer’s system design course of.
An instance of FEA
Faced with very tight packaging constraints, this buyer requested a diaphragm component for a valve software. By using FEA, we had been in a place to optimise the design; not only of the elastomer diaphragm itself, but also to suggest modifications to the hardware components that interfaced with it to extend the out there area for the diaphragm. This saved materials stress ranges low to remove any risk of fatigue failure of the diaphragm over the lifetime of the valve.
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