Tribology Of Elastomeric Seal Materials

DOC TOR A L T H E S I S Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Division of Machine Elements Luleå University of Technology 2009 Mohammadreza Mofidi ISSN: 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-86233-26-6 Tribology of elastomeric seal materials Tribology of elastomeric seal materials Mohammadreza Mofidi Luleå University of Technology Tribology of elastomeric seal materials Mohammadreza Mofidi Luleå University of Technology Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering Division of Machine Elements Tryck: Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå ISSN: 1402-1544 ISBN 978-91-86233-26-6 Luleå  www.ltu.se Tribology Of Elastomeric Seal Materials iii ____________________________________________________________________________ Preface The work presented in this thesis has been carried out at the Division of Machine Elements, Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in Luleå, Sweden. I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Braham Prakash and Professor Elisabet Kassfeldt, for their wholehearted support and guidance throughout this work. I have learnt a lot from the various courses I attended at this university and would like to thank all my teachers, especially Professor Braham Prakash and Professor Roland Larsson. My sincere thanks also go to my previous teachers at BSc and MSc levels especially, Professor Mansour Nikkhah Bahrami at the University of Tehran, Dr. Mohammad Reza Ghazavi and Professor Gholamhosein Liaghat at Tarbiat Modarres University. I wish to thank the “Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of IRAN” for awarding me the scholarship to pursue research at Luleå University of Technology. This work would not have been possible without this support and I am really grateful to the Government of Iran for this. All my colleagues at the Division of Machine Elements, especially Dr. Marika Torbacke, Gregory F. Simmons, Jens Hardell and Donald McCarthy have been very helpful whenever I had any difficulty and I sincerely acknowledge their support. A special thanks to my wife, Sedigheh and my son Aref for their support and patience. My sincere gratitude goes to my parents-in-law for their affection and kindness who passed away during the last three years. I would like to extend my appreciation to all my brothers and sisters for their profound kindness. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my parents, Parviz and Soghra, and feel a tremendous sense of appreciation for their genuine support, care, encouragement, patience and eternal dedication. Luleå, April 2009 Mohammadreza Mofidi Tribology Of Elastomeric Seal Materials iv ____________________________________________________________________________ Tribology Of Elastomeric Seal Materials ____________________________________________________________________________v Abstract Elastomers are the most commonly used materials for various sealing applications owing to their low modulus of elas