Experimental research on the friction and leakage of the metal rubber seal for reciprocating motion

Metal seals are widely used to solve the sealing problem in severe conditions. For reciprocating motion sealing problems, a metal rubber seal was proposed by combining the metal rubber (MR) materials with an axial opening C-shape jacket. In this research, to study the reciprocating sealing performance of metal rubber seals, a series of leaking experiments were carried out with a dynamic sealing test system. The friction force of the MR seal was measured under a variety of hydraulic pressure and velocity conditions. The static leakage principle of MR seals for axial sealing was presented based on Persson’s contact mechanics, and a circular gap leakage model was employed to describe the leakage during reciprocating motions. The static and dynamic leakage experiments of metal rubber seals for axial sealing were conducted, and the influence factors of leakage rates were analyzed.