Investigation of Design Parameters and Failure Criteria of O-Ring Seal Structure

First, this paper established the seal structural 2D axisymmetric model of a certain Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) and calculated the deformation and stresses at ignition through a large displacement, incompressible, contact finite element analysis. The results show that the maximum contact stress appears at the contact area and the maximum shear stress at groove notch. Then, some typical parameters of the seal structure which might have the impact on the sealing performance, such as the gap breadth, initial compressibility, fillets of the groove notch and bottom, groove width, were analyzed. We can find that the gap breadth and initial compressibility do great contributions to the maximum contact normal stress, and the groove notch and bottom fillets act upon the maximum shear stress obviously. In order to verify the validity of the 2D axisymmetric model, 3D structural finite element analysis of the structure was conducted, and the results indicate that in service, the upper flange is inclined relative to the nether flange, which seems to mean that the gap breadth can not be considered as a constant during the 2D axisymmetric analysis. However further calculations say that if using the minimum gap breadth gotten in 3D analysis as its constant gap value, the above 2D axisymmetric model can rationally take the place of 3D model to analyze the sealing performance. Finally, the failure modes & criteria of the O-ring seals based on the maximum contact normal stress and shear stress were determined to ensure the reliability of this structure.