Simulation of Creep Phenomenon for Gasket Sealing

Creep is responsible for creating time dependent changes in product dimensions and reducing strength that could affect the ability of products to resist design loads. Creep behavior is an important design consideration for polymers as this phenomenon is observed at very low temperatures compared to metals. Literature suggests many mathematical models to represent this complex creep phenomenon; however they are limited to most common polymers. Today's automotive industry is equipped with state of the art polymer materials considering specific design requirements from the stake holders. The current study is focused on the engine oil pan and its sealing requirements for the automotive business.

Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) plays a very critical role in today's quest to reduce the design cycle and testing time. Commercial codes like ANSYS and ABAQUS have been explored to perform the creep analysis and creep coefficients pertaining to primary and secondary creep are extracted through a curve fitting technique. The selected creep model is used to predict the deformation of the oil pan and evaluate dimensional changes against the gasket design requirements. The CAE methodology is verified and can further be used to understand the influence of other parameters like oil weight on the performance of oil pan.