Modeling Lubrication in Three Dimensional Wavy Elastomeric Seals

Skewed or wavy elastomeric seals are used for rotary sealing applications in the intermediate pressure range(1 - 10MPa). They provide the advantage of low friction and maintenance and virtually wear-free life. It is achieved by maintaining a thick lubricant film through the hydrodynamic action. Pressure-driven leakage is an important design parameter that defines the quality of a seal. Leakage depends on the thickness of the film, which is difficult to measure experimentally. Therefore, to design these sealing systems, it is necessary to have a robust numerical application to predict the behavior of these seals. Two fully coupled numerical approaches have been proposed in this thesis to address this problem. A Full system coupling model, where no simplifications are made to the solid model, and a Reduced system coupling model, where the solid model is reduced to a linear coupling operator. A penalty method has been implemented in the first model to address film rupture in the lubrication domain. The iterative block method has been extended to the soft EHL regime to track the cavitation boundary in the second model. A line contact study is carried out for simple O-ring cases to validate the models with the published literature. The Sine-O-ring seal, a wavy elastomeric seal, is studied using the second model for the hydrodynamic pressure and film thickness.