Innovative tool enables precise selection of the right O-ring material

The Engineered Materials Group of Parker Hannifin, the global leader in motion and control technologies, has announced the availability of a new web-based engineering tool: the Parker O-Ring Selector. The innovative tool enables precise selection of the right O-ring material and seal size according to the user’s application conditions.

Close interlinking of material and size selection delivers reliable results ensuring the desired performance of the O-ring in the subsequent application. The Parker O-Ring Selector covers both imperial and metric standards.

Material selection and sealing system design

The Parker O-Ring Selector combines a wide range of sealing materials with a calculation platform for O-ring seals. The selection of materials takes operating temperatures, fluids relevant to the sealing application, the polymer family and seal hardness as well as required approvals and conformances into account.

The data set of the material that has been characterized this way is subsequently fed into the actual selection of the sealing system. In this step, the Parker O-Ring Selector offers the user extensive options to parameterize the sealing system such as thermal expansion coefficients of the seal and the hardware components, volume swelling of the seal and manufacturing tolerances for the hardware components.

User-friendly structure

In addition to the delivery of reliable results, high user friendliness was a key objective in the development of the Parker O-Ring Selector. The three-part structure divided into ‘Service Conditions and Material Selector’, ‘Size Selector’ and ‘Notes’ as the main sections is logical and clearly arranged, thus assuring ease of use.