Finite Element Analysis offers knowledge to predict how a seal product will perform beneath sure circumstances and may help determine areas where the design can be improved without having to test multiple prototypes.
Here we clarify how our engineers use FEA to design optimal sealing options for our buyer functions.
Why will เครื่องมือที่ใช้วัดความดันคือ use Finite Element Analysis (FEA)?
Our engineers encounter many important sealing applications with complicating influences. Envelope measurement, housing limitations, shaft speeds, pressure/temperature rankings and chemical media are all software parameters that we should consider when designing a seal.
In isolation, the impression of those software parameters within reason straightforward to predict when designing a sealing resolution. However, when you compound a quantity of these factors (whilst often pushing a few of them to their upper limit when sealing) it’s essential to foretell what will happen in actual application conditions. Using FEA as a tool, our engineers can confidently design and then manufacture strong, reliable, and cost-effective engineered sealing options for our customers.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) permits us to grasp and quantify the effects of real-world situations on a seal half or meeting. It can be used to establish potential causes where sub-optimal sealing performance has been noticed and may also be used to information the design of surrounding elements; particularly for products similar to diaphragms and boots where contact with adjoining elements may need to be averted.
The software additionally permits pressure knowledge to be extracted so that compressive forces for static seals, and friction forces for dynamic seals could be accurately predicted to help customers in 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 situations and constraints provided by a buyer; these can embrace strain, pressure, temperatures, and any utilized displacements. A appropriate finite factor mesh is overlaid onto the seal design. This ensures that the areas of most interest return correct results. We can use bigger mesh sizes in areas with less relevance (or decrease ranges of displacement) to minimise the computing time required to resolve the model.
Material properties are then assigned to the seal and hardware elements. Most sealing materials are non-linear; the amount they deflect underneath a rise in pressure varies depending on how giant that drive is. This is unlike the straight-line relationship for most metals and inflexible plastics. This complicates the fabric model and extends the processing time, however we use in-house tensile take a look at services to precisely produce the stress-strain materials fashions for our compounds to ensure the evaluation is as consultant of real-world efficiency as attainable.
What happens with the FEA data?
The evaluation itself can take minutes or hours, depending on the complexity of the part and the range of operating circumstances being modelled. Behind the scenes within the software program, many hundreds of 1000’s of differential equations are being solved.
The outcomes are analysed by our experienced seal designers to determine areas the place the design could be optimised to match the specific necessities of the application. Examples of those requirements might include sealing at very low temperatures, a must minimise friction levels with a dynamic seal or the seal might have to withstand excessive pressures with out extruding; no matter sealing system properties are most essential to the shopper and the applying.
Results for the finalised proposal can be offered to the client as force/temperature/stress/time dashboards, numerical information and animations showing how a seal performs throughout the evaluation. This information can be used 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 component for a valve application. By utilizing FEA, we have been in a position to optimise the design; not only of the elastomer diaphragm itself, but in addition to propose modifications to the hardware components that interfaced with it to extend the available house for the diaphragm. This stored materials stress ranges low to remove any possibility of fatigue failure of the diaphragm over the life of the valve.
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