Consideration of fluid-structure interaction with the CEL approach for the FE-prediction of a blow-off pressure for an elastomeric seal

Assessment of leakage performance is a fundamental aspect in the design of elastomeric fluid seals. The key characteristic of the leakage performance is the blow-off pressure - when it is reached a seal no longer adequately performs its function. Realistic simulation of these phenomena under different conditions (amount of preload, pressure build-up rate, etc.) would facilitate improvement in the seal design methodology and would allow efficient optimisation of a seal design. For an accurate prediction of the blow-off pressure, Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) needs to be considered, since the geometrical disposition of the seal, its deformation and its contact conditions with respect to the main structure are adversely affected by the fluid flow and fluid pressure. In this study, the most advanced FSI technique currently available is employed for the numerical simulation - the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) approach in ABAQUS [1]. This project leads the way for future work, to validate these results and determine the accuracy of the technique and its applications for more complex analyses.