What Are Seals?
Seals are critical components that provide an essential means for retaining liquids and gases within pipes or vessels. They ensure that nothing seeps out, which is important for a lot of different jobs. The seal which you will find in the rubber connections of a water pipe to a tap is an example. The two most commonly used types of seals are the EPDM automotive rubber door seals. We will further expand on these two types of seals and how they differ from one another in this text.
EPDM vs Silicone Seals
EPDM is a unique group of synthetic rubber. That is, it is composed of synthetic rather than natural materials. EPDM seals display high resistance towards water, vapour and adverse weather conditions (example rain/snow). They also deal with things like ozone, which is a gas, and ultraviolet rays from the sun. These characteristics make the EPDM seals part really useful in a multitude of jobs through many industries.
Which Seal Is Better?
We ran some comparisons with some real testing to see which seal was in fact better. Here is what we found out from those tests:
EPDM Seals: Elastic EPDM seals are good insulators against elements like water and steam. They are not easy to squish, so they can hold their shape fairly well. EPDM seals also retain heat well, as well as being resistant to UV rays and ozone, so are suitable for outdoor use. But on the other side, it's not very good when it gets in touch with gasoline or oil and it can barely withstand it. This means they may not be fit for work involving these substances.
EPDM vs. Silicone Seals: A Comparative Study
To understand the relative positioning of EPDM vs silicone seals, we performed a few tests to compare their results:
Compression test: Here we squeezed both types of seals to see how much each of them would recover after being compressed. We noticed that the seals both recovered well, however, in this scenario, the EPDM door rubber seal outperformed silicone seals in recovery.
Since we were introducing these seals under high temperature, we wanted to test out how they would perform under high temperature. Silicone seals outperformed EPDM seals in this test. Silicone seals remained stable and unchanged at temperatures of up to 200°C while EPDM seals deteriorated and lost strength at around 120°C.
Ozone and UV Resistance Tests
When we tested ozone resistance with these seals, we noticed both materials performed well. But EPDM seals were ozone-cad in comparison to silicone seals which made them a ideal chooses in an areas where ozone exposure is note a concern. Last but not least, we tested how well these materials repel ultraviolet rays from sunlight.
Conclusion
Now, based on all the tests we did, it stands that EPDM automotive door seal rubber and silicone seal have distinct advantages and disadvantages. EPDM weather seals are highly competent of providing water and steam resistance, making them the best choice for certain jobs. Silicone seals are better for high temperature and for resist shellocs and greases so used in different situations. Consider what you need the seal for and the environment in which that seal is going to live before choosing between these two materials. RONGHE offers EPDM and silicone seals, we are committed to providing customers with the best seal to meet customer needs.