The Cost Effective Use of HNBR to Replace Fluoroelastomers in Automotive Sealing Applications

Fluoroelastomers (FKM) have been used for many years for a wide variety of automotive applications requiring resistance to temperature and/or aggressive fluids. In many of these cases, FKM was used because no other elastomers were available to meet the needs.

Hydrogenated nitrile rubber (HNBR) is a new family of elastomers which can meet many of these very stringent requirements. HNBR has been tested in a variety of state-of-the-art automotive fluids versus most of the currently commercially available families of FKM and the results are discussed in this paper. Data from this study highlights potential automotive sealing applications where HNBR, if used, could meet the performance criteria at a reduced cost.