Investigation of Elastic Leak in Rectangular Hydrogel Seals

Eliminating the need for external manipulation due to the ability of hydrogels to sense the environmental stimuli and swelling, makes it suitable for sealing applications. As the matter of fact, many researchers from both academia and industry have investigated hydrogel seals experimentally and numerically. In this work, by using constitutive models available in the literature, the sealing properties of rectangular hydrogel seals are numerically investigated. To investigate elastic leakage of hydrogel seals subjected to fluid pressure, leakage models of elastomeric ones are implemented. The methods are validated by comparing the result of the model with available experiments in the literature. Afterward, the mechanism of leakage of hydrogel seal is presented, and then, parameter studies are carried out. It has been found that increasing the cross-link density, hydrogel length, and the ratio of hydrogel thickness to the gap it seals increases the value of fluid pressure associated with leakage.