When the rubber O-ring follows the primary seal in the axial direction as a secondary seal, there is hysteresis behavior between the restoring force and displacement. However, the dynamic parameters of O-rings are mostly expressed as constants in dynamic analysis at present, which cannot accurately describe the dynamic behavior of sealing systems. In response to the problem of poor track performance of mechanical seals, based on the actual working conditions in nuclear reactor coolant pumps, vibration experiments with high pressure and water lubrication are carried out on ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) rubber O-rings, which can reveal the laws in the actual situation. The experimental results confirm that there are nonlinear variations of O-ring dynamic parameters in vibration, which cannot be expressed by constants. In order to quantitatively characterize the nonlinear behavior, this study establishes a novel mathematical model and analyze the influence of working conditions. A method combining the nonlinear properties of both interfacial sliding and body viscoelasticity of O-rings is proposed. The nonlinear stiffness, damping and friction (NSDF) model is established based on the adjusted Iwan model and the trace method. The finite element analysis and vibration experiments are carried out to study the hysteretic behavior and determine the parameters of the model. Furthermore, the influence of medium pressure and vibration amplitude on interfacial stiffness and O-ring stiffness and damping are discussed. It is pointed out that O-ring stiffness and damping decrease with increasing amplitude and increase with increasing pressure. The comparative analysis of experiments and model shows that the proposed model can provide an accurate determination of the nonlinear behavior of O-rings in vibration. The results and the proposed model can provide a basis for the evaluation of the dynamic performance of mechanical seal systems.
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