Gas Leakage Prediction of Contact Interface in Fabric Rubber Seal Based on a Rectangle Channel Model

In this article, the gas leakage prediction through the contact interfaces between a fabric rubber seal and a metal platen is studied based on numerical simulation. A rectangular channel model based on the contact interface is established. The theoretical prediction about the gas leakage for the initial rectangular channel verifies the result from the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Both the finite element method (FEM) and CFD are used to simulate deformation of the fabric rubber seal and the gas leakage, respectively. The influence of rubber thickness and the modulus of the fabric rubber seal under different loading displacements and different contact stresses is studied. In addition, the rubber thickness does not influence the mass flow rate any more under the same contact stress for the normal rubber seal (h₂ ≥ 2,000 μm).