TY - CONF A1 - Kömmling, Anja A1 - Jaunich, Matthias A1 - Wolff, Dietmar T1 - Characterisation of degradation and determination of end-of-lifetime criterion for O-ring seals N2 - The ageing of polymers, including elastomers, is an undesirable but inevitable process leading to a limited lifetime of rubber products such as seals. Independent of the application, as e.g. in automotive, piping or container applications, a long lifetime or at least a timely exchange of a seal before occurrence of critical failure is desired. In order to investigate the degradation of material properties and to determine the lifetime of elastomers used as seals, an ageing programme was started with hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR), ethylene propylene diene rubber (EPDM) and fluorocarbon rubber (FKM) [1-3]. Both O-ring seals (uncompressed and compressed by 25 %) with a cord diameter of 10 mm as well as sheets with a thickness of 2 mm were aged at 75 °C, 100 °C, 125 °C and 150 °C for up to two years. The changes of material properties during ageing were characterised for each material using samples from the sheets by means of e.g. Dynamic Mechanical Analysis and tensile tests, while sealing properties such as leakage rate were determined on O-rings. The experimental results indicate that while material properties show considerable degradation effects, the static leakage rate stays constant or even decreases before failure occurs quite suddenly at advanced degradation levels. This reveals that static leakage rate has only limited sensitivity for the degradation of the seal material. Our approach to determine a suitable end of lifetime criterion, which involves a partial decompression of the seal during the leakage test, is presented and discussed. T2 - RubberCon 2017 CY - Prague, Czech Republic DA - 23.05.2017 KW - Life time prediction KW - Ageing KW - Rubber seal KW - Leakage PY - 2017 SN - 978-80-906662-0-7 SP - 65 EP - 72 AN - OPUS4-40391 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Jaunich, Matthias A1 - Hagenow, Peter A1 - Kasparek, Eva Maria A1 - Kömmling, Anja A1 - Noack, Volker A1 - Völzke, Holger A1 - Wolff, Dietmar T1 - Requirements for the use of elastomer seals in casks for final disposal of low and intermediate level waste N2 - Elastomer seals are widely used as barrier seals in containers for low and intermediate level radioactive waste and in some countries for spent fuel transportation casks. Depending on the area of use, the rubber materials have to demonstrate proper sealing performance with regard to mechanical, thermal and environmental conditions as well as irradiation during the entire operation period. In Germany the low and intermediate level radioactive waste is planned to be disposed in the Konrad repository in standardized containers. Many of these containers use an elastomer seal between lid and container body. Depending on the radiactive inventory and a possible containment of the waste in inner barrels and/or concrete structures, such containers may require a specific leak tightness. In such cases, specified leakage rates are shall not be exceeded by the the seals to keep potential activity releases from the inventories well below defined limits. Generally, all waste containers have to fulfill the waste acceptance criteria for the Konrad repository as defined by the reports BfS SE-IB-29/08 and SE-IB-30/08. From these criteria several requirements for seal performance are derived. The seals have to: - ensure full functionality until final container disposal, - maintain its function in case of a thermal or mechanical accident, - ensure encapsulation also at -20 °C. This combination of requirements is challenging especially as a seal exchange, which is typical for many other applications, is hardly possible and thus a sound understanding of how to perform safety evaluation of containers is required. Therefore BAM has initiated investigations on elastomer seal behaviour. This work focuses on low temperature behaviour and sealing performance concerning static conditions as well as partial loss of compression and ageing of elastomer seals. Concerning ageing, property changes caused by long-term thermooxidative conditions as well as gamma irradiation are investigated. This contribution presents an overview and explanation of the aims of the ongoing research and gives an update of the most relevant results. T2 - 13th Internationales Symposium "Konditionierung radioaktiver Betriebs- und Stillegungsabfälle CY - Dresden, Germany DA - 22.03.2017 KW - Disposal KW - Konrad repository KW - Seal PY - 2017 SP - 595 EP - 601 AN - OPUS4-39870 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -