Presenting TDM-Seals results
Presenting TDM-Seals results
Seals are widely used in technical systems. They prevent e.g. leakage of fluids or contamination with dirt. Of-ten, contacting elastomeric seals are used for dynamic sealing of moving parts. These seals obtain good seal-ing results due to their deformation abilities. A downside of this type of seals is the relatively high friction. Fric-tion causes several undesired effects as e.g. wear and loss of energy; i.e. kinetic energy is converted to ther-mal energy. Various possibilities exist to reduce seal friction as e.g. lubrication of the sealing contact, low fric-tion coatings and structuring of the seal surface. The latter method was already widely tested for seals with rather hard materials as piston rings and mechanical face seals. See e.g. (Etsion, 2004). Only very few sources cover surface texturing of rather soft elastomeric seals. (B. Fernandez-Diaz, 2007) performed experimental in-vestigations. (Shinkarenko, Kligerman, & Etsion, 2009) tested viscous friction of different textures using an EHL-simulation, but only considered a few operation conditions. Both showed that textures are able to reduce friction.
INFLUENCE OF SURFACE TEXTURES ON THE VISCOUS FRICTION OF ELASTOMERIC SEALS>>
