Evaluation on High-Pressure Hydrogen Decompression Failure of Rubber O-ring Using Design of Experiments

The rubber O-rings used in high-pressure hydrogen environment sometimes suffer from the decrease in durability due to decompression failure. A high-pressure durability tester, which enables rubber O-rings to expose repeatedly high-pressure hydrogen gas at arbitrary test conditions, was employed, and then sensitive factors for the durability of the O-rings were evaluated by using a L18 orthogonal array. Of lower-limit pressure, upper-limit pressure, material, temperature, O-ring filling ratio, holding time at lower limit, holding time at upper limit, and decompression time, it was clarified that the material, temperature, O-ring filling ratio, and decompression time were sensitive factors.