Predicting the lifetime of fluorosilicone o-rings

Long-term (up to 1000 days) accelerated oven-aging studies on a commercial fluorosilicone o-ring seal are used to predict the sealing lifetime at room temperature (23 °C). The study follows force decay (relaxation) on squeezed o-ring material using isothermal compression stress relaxation (CSR) techniques. The relaxation is normally a complex mix of reversible physical effects and non-reversible chemical effects but we utilize an over-strain approach to quickly achieve physical equilibrium. This allows us to concentrate the measurements on the chemical relaxation effects of primary interest to lifetime assessment. The long-term studies allow us to access a fairly broad temperature range (80-138 °C) which results in improved modeling of the temperature dependence of the accelerated data. Non-Arrhenius behavior is observed with evidence of a significant lowering of the activation energy at the lowest accelerated aging temperature (80 °C). This observation is consistent with numerous recent accelerated aging studies that probed temperature ranges large enough to observe similar non-Arrhenius behavior. The extrapolated predictions imply that significant loss of sealing force requires on the order of 50-100 years at 23 °C. Field aging results out to ∼25 years at 23 °C are shown to be in reasonable accord with the significant change in Arrhenius slope observed from the accelerated aging study.