A Study on Sealing Performance of Dust Cover

Various kinds of dust covers made of rubber are used in the chassis of automobiles such as suspension and tie rods. (See figures 1 and 2.)

Generally, sealing performance of the dust cover is expressed by the lip radial load and the repulsion force effected by the membrane stiffness.

However sealing performance was not fully explained by the concept of the lip radial load and the repulsion of the membrane stiffness.

Through experiments, authors fully clarified the sealing performance introducing the concept of the pressure per unit area which is greatly affected by heat degradation and endurance.