Replacement Long-life Hydraulic Seal

"In military aircraft, there is a high rate of premature failures of elastomeric seals that costs over $200,000,000 in annual repair. Because all hydraulic components rely on fluids for lubrication and cooling in service, when fluid is lost thesecomponents run dry and seize. The hydraulic fluid itself is also an environmental contaminant that contributes to collateral damage. Further, the fluid used in the environmental control system has contributed to electronic component damage throughcorrosive attack. As such, the seals play a critical role in ensuring mission readiness and system functionality. Currently, the hydraulic seals in question are manufactured from nitrile rubber compounds that do not maintain sufficient elasticity orintegrity over the full range of mission profile temperatures. As a result, leakage occurs that is not always detected in time to prevent primary system or collateral damage. METSS will demonstrate the feasibility of exploiting recent advances inelastomer chemistry and available material technologies to develop materials as direct replacements for aircraft hydraulic system seals. METSS will build on recent developments in rubber chemistry that have resulted in the extension of performanceproperties at both low and high temperatures, and have already demonstrated significant potential to meet the service requirements. Leaking seals are found frequently enough to constitute a major problem, leading to