Finite Element Analysis supplies data to predict how a seal product will perform under sure situations and can help establish areas where the design can be improved with out having to test a quantity of prototypes.
Here we clarify how our engineers use FEA to design optimal sealing options for our customer applications.
Why do we use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
Our engineers encounter many important sealing purposes with complicating influences. Envelope measurement, housing limitations, shaft speeds, pressure/temperature scores and chemical media are all software parameters that we must contemplate when designing a seal.
In isolation, the impression of these application parameters is reasonably easy to foretell when designing a sealing answer. However, when you compound numerous these components (whilst typically pushing a few of them to their upper limit when sealing) it’s crucial to predict what goes to happen in actual utility situations. Using FEA as a device, our engineers can confidently design after which manufacture strong, dependable, and cost-effective engineered sealing options for our customers.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) permits us to understand and quantify the effects of real-world situations on a seal part or meeting. It can be used to determine potential causes the place sub-optimal sealing performance has been observed and can be used to guide the design of surrounding elements; particularly for merchandise similar to diaphragms and boots the place contact with adjoining elements could have to be prevented.
The software also permits drive knowledge to be extracted in order that compressive forces for static seals, and friction forces for dynamic seals may be accurately predicted to help clients in the ultimate design of their products.
How do we use FEA?
Starting with a 2D or 3D mannequin of the preliminary design idea, we apply the boundary circumstances and constraints supplied by a buyer; these can embrace pressure, force, temperatures, and any applied displacements. A appropriate finite factor mesh is overlaid onto the seal design. This ensures that the areas of most curiosity return accurate results. We can use larger mesh sizes in areas with much less relevance (or lower levels of displacement) to minimise the computing time required to solve the mannequin.
Material properties are then assigned to the seal and hardware components. Most sealing materials are non-linear; the quantity they deflect underneath a rise in force varies depending on how large that pressure is. This is in distinction to the straight-line relationship for many metals and inflexible plastics. This complicates the material mannequin and extends the processing time, but we use in-house tensile test amenities to precisely produce the stress-strain materials fashions for our compounds to ensure the analysis is as consultant of real-world performance as attainable.
What occurs with the FEA data?
The evaluation itself can take minutes or hours, relying on the complexity of the part and the vary of working circumstances being modelled. Behind the scenes in the software, many tons of of 1000’s of differential equations are being solved.
The results are analysed by our skilled seal designers to determine areas the place the design may be optimised to match the precise necessities of the applying. Examples of those necessities may include sealing at very low temperatures, a must minimise friction levels with a dynamic seal or the seal may have to withstand excessive pressures without extruding; whatever sealing system properties are most essential to the customer and the appliance.
Results for the finalised proposal could be offered to the shopper as force/temperature/stress/time dashboards, numerical information and animations displaying how a seal performs throughout the evaluation. This information can be used as validation data in the customer’s system design process.
An instance of FEA
Faced with very tight packaging constraints, this buyer requested a diaphragm part for a valve application. By using เกจวัดแรงดัน , we were able to optimise the design; not solely of the elastomer diaphragm itself, but additionally to suggest modifications to the hardware parts that interfaced with it to increase the obtainable house for the diaphragm. This stored material stress ranges low to take away any risk of fatigue failure of the diaphragm over the life of the valve.
Share