Finite Element Analysis offers data to predict how a seal product will operate beneath certain circumstances and can help establish areas where the design may be improved with out having to check a quantity of prototypes.
Here we clarify how our engineers use FEA to design optimum sealing solutions for our buyer functions.
Why will we use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
Our engineers encounter many crucial sealing purposes with complicating influences. Envelope measurement, housing limitations, shaft speeds, pressure/temperature scores and chemical media are all software parameters that we must think about when designing a seal.
In isolation, the impression of those utility parameters is fairly easy to foretell when designing a sealing resolution. However, when you compound a selection of these factors (whilst usually pushing a few of them to their higher limit when sealing) it is essential to predict what’s going to occur in real utility conditions. Using FEA as a software, our engineers can confidently design and then manufacture sturdy, dependable, and cost-effective engineered sealing options for our clients.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) permits us to know and quantify the results of real-world circumstances on a seal half or meeting. It can be used to establish potential causes where sub-optimal sealing performance has been observed and can also be used to guide the design of surrounding elements; particularly for products such as diaphragms and boots where contact with adjacent components may have to be averted.
The software program also permits drive information to be extracted in order that compressive forces for static seals, and friction forces for dynamic seals can be precisely predicted to help prospects within the ultimate design of their products.
How can we use FEA?
Starting with a 2D or 3D model of the initial design concept, we apply the boundary conditions and constraints equipped by a buyer; these can include strain, drive, temperatures, and any utilized displacements. A suitable finite component mesh is overlaid onto the seal design. This ensures that the areas of most interest return accurate outcomes. We can use bigger mesh sizes in areas with much less relevance (or lower ranges of displacement) to minimise the computing time required to resolve the mannequin.
Material properties are then assigned to the seal and hardware elements. pressure gauge octa sealing supplies are non-linear; the quantity they deflect underneath a rise in pressure varies relying on how massive that drive is. This is in distinction to the straight-line relationship for many metals and inflexible plastics. This complicates the fabric model and extends the processing time, but we use in-house tensile check amenities to accurately produce the stress-strain materials models for our compounds to ensure the evaluation is as consultant of real-world performance as attainable.
What happens with the FEA data?
The analysis itself can take minutes or hours, depending on the complexity of the part and the vary of operating situations being modelled. Behind the scenes within the software, many lots of of 1000’s of differential equations are being solved.
The results are analysed by our experienced seal designers to determine areas where the design can be optimised to match the precise necessities of the appliance. Examples of those necessities could embody sealing at very low temperatures, a have to minimise friction levels with a dynamic seal or the seal might have to resist excessive pressures with out extruding; whatever sealing system properties are most necessary to the client and the appliance.
Results for the finalised proposal may be offered to the customer as force/temperature/stress/time dashboards, numerical knowledge and animations displaying how a seal performs all through the evaluation. This data can be utilized as validation information within the customer’s system design process.
An example of FEA
Faced with very tight packaging constraints, this buyer requested a diaphragm element for a valve software. By utilizing FEA, we were capable of optimise the design; not only of the elastomer diaphragm itself, but also to suggest modifications to the hardware elements that interfaced with it to increase the available house for the diaphragm. This saved materials stress levels low to take away any possibility of fatigue failure of the diaphragm over the lifetime of the valve.
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