Investigation on Leakage Issue in Air Brake Valve Using Finite Element Method and Experimental Analysis

Braking system components generally are safety critical products. Commercial vehicles braking systems are of highly safety critical as they pose a serious threat to life and property. Therefore, a system must be designed and validated to minimize the effects of component failure of these portfolios of products. In order to avoid accidents due to brake failures, this paper mainly focuses on analysis of loss of pneumatic fluid pressure in the components of the braking systems. Leakage of pneumatic fluid pressure through the sealing in braking system is one of the major reasons for the failure of the brakes in the vehicles. The aim of the present study is to simulate the lab failure and improve the design using finite element analysis. Also, the optimized design is validated by experimentally. A finite element model is developed in Ansys Workbench to study the behavior of the sealing ring under assembly conditions. The analysis includes the mating parts dimensions and the sealing ring parameters. The sealing ring design is optimized from initial proposal using non-linear Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and validated. Results include assembly force, deformation contact pressure and strain experienced by the sealing ring during the assembling process. In this study, Mooney - Rivlin hyper elastic material model is used to simulate the sealing behavior during assembling conditions.