Analysis of the gasket geometry for sealing glass lamination autoclaves

Abstract

Nowadays, autoclaves are widely used for industrial applications such as composite material production, laminated glass production, rubber industry etc. Autoclave is pressurized and heated up according to its special recipes which are prepared by considering technical specification of interlayer material, types and thickness of the glass sheets. During the entire laminated glass production period, gasket on the autoclave door provides sealing and it must not damage the steady air circulation inside of the autoclave. In the present study, the sealing of glass lamination autoclave was investigated numerically. In order to perform finite element analysis, a simplified finite element model has been created by considering both gaps between autoclave door and its housing and also, geometry of gasket. In general, hyper-elastic based gasket materials are used for glass laminating autoclaves. Mooney-Rivlin hyper-elastic material model was used for this study. In this study, 9 different gasket geometries were designed and FEM analysis of the gaskets were carried out by using Ansys Workbench. FEM analyses were performed at 13 bar for operating pressure. Results have been compared in terms of deformation of the gaskets, von Misses equivalent stress. The most suitable gasket geometry has been determined according to the simulation and FEA results.