Directionally reinforced rubber and seal unit made therefrom

Abstract

Abstract A reinforced rubber sheet material in which a plurality of long fluorocarbon polymer strands made of fine individual fibers are disposed in a generally parallel orientation in respect to a given axis of said rubber sheet. The rubber totally surrounds or encapsulates the fluorocarbon polymers strands, without necessarily being chemically bonded to such strands. The rubber sheet material is made by adding a particulate fluorocarbon polymer to an uncured rubber composition and subjecting the mass to a series of milling, shearing, or rolling operations to create fibers from the polymer, to cause the fibers to associate into strands, and to orient the strands in relation to one axis of the rubber sheet. In a torsional deflection seal constructed from a rubber sheet material prepared according to the present invention, the fibers have the effect of leaving substantially unaltered the shear modules of the material along on axis, and at the same time adding substantial tensile strength along another axis, so that a resulting seal member may readily undergo torsional deflection but resist undue deflection or radial "ballooning" when subjected to an internal gas or like fluid pressure.

Inventors

• 👤 Jimmie D Leonard

Bibliographic Details