Technological Trends and Issues in Gaskets

摘要

Gaskets are defined as insert seals (fixed surface seals) installed between two statically connected mechanical components to prevent a leakage of fluid and important mechanical elements that ensure the reliability, functionality, and efficiency of mechanisms. A great variety of developed seals that differ by their form, material, and principles of sealing and by their application and operating conditions (sealing fluid, pressure, and temperature) is used as gaskets. It is important that characteristics of every selected seal are sufficiently understood and the target application and operating conditions are exactly observed. Gaskets can be roughly divided from the point of view of material used in them into nonmetal gaskets, metal gaskets and semi-metallic gaskets that combine nonmetal and metal materials. Nonmetal gaskets are produced from one of the soft materials, such as synthetic rubber, resin, graphite, and so on, or from these materials used in combination. A typical example is an O-ring made of synthetic rubber. Metal gaskets are used under severe operating conditions under which nonmetal gaskets cannot be used, such as high-temperature, high-pressure conditions, high vacuum, and extremely low temperature conditions. In the present work, typical seals chosen among gaskets widely used in different fields, for example, in nuclear power plants, motors, aviation, space, food processing machinery, etc., such as O-ring gaskets and metal C-ring gaskets with an inserted spring, will be considered, and recent technological trends and related problems will be explained from the user's point of view.