Finite Element Analysis of Wear of a Sealing Gasket made of Polymer Material

A manufacturer of sealing gaskets for the oil & gas industry  needed a method for developing customized sealing solutions. Their main objective was a good leak tightness and a long and predictable lifetime.

We developed an FE model, which took the 3D Geometry of the sealings, the neighboring component parts and the transient applied pressure into account. We developed an iterative method for the computation of local wear, the induced sealing deformation and stress redistribution. The material behavior of PTFE was first modeled using linear elasticity. Later we introduced a visco-plastic model to take the effect of creep on the structural behavior into account.

The model allows for a purposeful dimensioning of sealing gaskets and an early and efficient estimation of their performance.