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ADC12 is one of the common aluminum alloys for automobiles because it has suitable for casting and machining. However, the corrosion resistance of ADC12 is insufficient in comparison with other aluminum alloys. The corrosion depends on chemical composition of aluminum and circumstance around aluminum. It was considered that a crevice such as a seal gap accelerates corrosion rate. Therefore, the corrosion at a sealing gap between ADC12 and rubber gasket was investigated. Salt water corrosion tests were carried out with an o-ring compressed between ADC12 plate and plastic plate. Corrosion depth and corrosion area at sealing surface were measured with a microscope. The corrosion depth at the sealing surface was deeper than that outside it. Since smooth surface of aluminum prevented the sealing surface from corrosion, it was considered that the narrow sealing gap enabled to decrease in the corrosion rate.

NBR (acrylonitrile butadiene rubber) has been used for the oil seal equipped on a power steering. However, lack of heat resistance was occasionally observed for NBR, with the recent trend of customer's demand for increasing the life of oil seals in high temperature environmental condition. We developed an oil seal with H-NBR material, which could exhibit the superior performance in the heat resistance; however, it had a weak point in low temperature environment. We have developed HNBR1, the new H-NBR, which has been improved in the performance for low temperature [1]. HNBR1 has been applied for power steering seals as the rubber material, which has superior heat resistance, cold resistance and oil resistance.

Sealing performance of oil seals for reciprocating motion has been previously investigated applying the inverse theory of hydrodynamic lubrication. According to this theory, sealing performance of the oil seal is dominated by factors such as the configuration of the lip (lip angle), viscosity of the fluid to be sealed, the sliding speed and the physical property of the lip material. In this presentation, the authors apply the above mentioned theory to a shock absorber seal under the condition where the pumping stroke and motoring stroke speeds of the rod are different. Consequently, the configuration of the seal lip is improved.