A New Concept of Static Rubber Gasket for Sealing Rough Surface

This paper reports on a new concept for static seal designs taking into consideration the surface roughness of sealing surfaces. The concept focuses on fluid penetration from the interstices between the seal and counterface caused by surface roughness. In the study, we investigated the relation between the leakage and surface roughness of the sealing surface of the elastomer seal. At the same time, we also analyzed the contact state of the elastomer seal based on the equations of Ishiwata et al. on deformation of elastomer surface into rough surfaces [1]. The micro-leakage testing machine (SMLA) developed by the authors was used to measure micro-leakage at high precision and in a short time [2]. The results showed that the sealing phenomena were related to the ratio of seal surface contact pressure P_s / elastic modulus of seal E, determined by the compression ratio of seals, and does not depend on the chemical structure and hardness of the elastomer used. Furthermore, we reviewed the equations for predicting leakage based on the shape and elastic modulus of the elastomer seal, surface roughness of the seals and counterfaces, and using conditions, and found that these can be simulated.