Analysis of the gasket geometry for sealing glass lamination autoclaves

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