Leakage Monitoring in Static Sealing Interface Based on Three Dimensional Surface Topography Indicator

Abstract

Leakage directly affects the functional behavior of a product in engineering practice, and surface topography is one of the main factors in static seal to prevent leakage. This paper aims at monitoring the leakage in static sealing interface, using three-dimensional (3D) surface topography as an indicator. The 3D surface is measured by a high definition metrology (HDM) instrument that can generate millions of data points representing the entire surface. The monitoring approach proposes a series of novel surface leakage parameters including virtual gasket, contact area percentage (CAP), void volume (VV), and relative void volume (SWvoid) as indicators. An individual control chart is adopted to monitor the leakage surface of the successive machining process. Meantime, based on the Persson contact mechanics and percolation theory, the threshold of leakage parameter is found using finite element modeling (FEM). Experimental results indicate that the proposed monitoring method is valid to precontrol the machining process and prevent leakage occurring.