Finite Element Analysis offers information to predict how a seal product will function under sure circumstances and can help determine areas where the design can be improved without having to test multiple prototypes.
Here we clarify how our engineers use FEA to design optimum sealing solutions for our buyer functions.
Why can we use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
Our engineers encounter many important sealing applications with complicating influences. Envelope size, housing limitations, shaft speeds, pressure/temperature rankings and chemical media are all application parameters that we should consider when designing a seal.
In isolation, the influence of these software parameters within reason easy to foretell when designing a sealing solution. However, when you compound numerous these components (whilst typically pushing some of them to their upper restrict when sealing) it is crucial to predict what goes to occur in actual application conditions. Using FEA as a software, our engineers can confidently design and then manufacture robust, reliable, and cost-effective engineered sealing options for our clients.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) permits us to understand and quantify the consequences of real-world situations on a seal part or meeting. It can be utilized to establish potential causes where sub-optimal sealing performance has been noticed and may also be used to information the design of surrounding elements; especially for merchandise similar to diaphragms and boots the place contact with adjoining elements could need to be averted.
The software program additionally allows pressure information to be extracted so that compressive forces for static seals, and friction forces for dynamic seals may be accurately predicted to assist customers within the final design of their merchandise.
How can we use FEA?
Starting with a 2D or 3D mannequin of the preliminary design concept, we apply the boundary circumstances and constraints supplied by a customer; these can embody pressure, drive, temperatures, and any applied displacements. A appropriate finite element mesh is overlaid onto the seal design. This ensures that the areas of most curiosity return correct outcomes. We can use larger mesh sizes in areas with less relevance (or lower levels of displacement) to minimise the computing time required to solve the mannequin.
เครื่องมือความดัน are then assigned to the seal and hardware parts. Most sealing materials are non-linear; the quantity they deflect beneath a rise in drive varies depending on how giant that force is. This is in distinction to the straight-line relationship for most metals and inflexible plastics. This complicates the material model and extends the processing time, but we use in-house tensile test facilities to precisely produce the stress-strain materials fashions for our compounds to ensure the evaluation is as representative of real-world efficiency as potential.
What occurs with the FEA data?
The analysis itself can take minutes or hours, depending on the complexity of the part and the range of operating situations being modelled. Behind the scenes within the software program, many hundreds of hundreds of differential equations are being solved.
The outcomes are analysed by our skilled seal designers to establish areas where the design can be optimised to match the particular necessities of the application. Examples of these necessities could embody sealing at very low temperatures, a need to minimise friction levels with a dynamic seal or the seal may have to resist high pressures without extruding; whatever sealing system properties are most important to the shopper and the applying.
Results for the finalised proposal can be presented to the customer as force/temperature/stress/time dashboards, numerical knowledge and animations showing how a seal performs throughout the evaluation. This info can be used as validation data in the customer’s system design course of.
An instance of FEA
Faced with very tight packaging constraints, this customer requested a diaphragm element for a valve utility. By using FEA, we were able to optimise the design; not solely of the elastomer diaphragm itself, but additionally to suggest modifications to the hardware parts that interfaced with it to increase the available house for the diaphragm. This saved materials stress ranges low to take away any risk of fatigue failure of the diaphragm over the lifetime of the valve.
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