Dowty Seals Limited

Robin A Walker

Edward Francis Hillier

A method of manufacturing a seal which involves printing seal material onto a substrate by printing a first layer of seal material onto the substrate with a stencil, printing a subsequent layer of seal material onto the substrate with a further stencil, and curing or partially curing the seal material, wherein the further stencil has a recess formed therein which accommodates the first layer of seal material printed onto the substrate.

Method of manufacturing a seal

A seal or gasket having at least one aperture providing a fluid passageway and intended in use to be clamped by clamping means between surfaces of two parts to be sealed. The seal or gasket comprises conformable elastically-compressible material and relatively-incompressible material bonded therein. The relatively-incompressible material forms an extrusion-limiting barrier which extends at least part-way around the aperture, which is interrupted at intervals by portions of the elastically-compressible material and which is spaced from the aperture by a border portion wholly of the elastically-compressible material.

Seals and gaskets

An imperforate sheet of gasket material from which gaskets, for preventing leakage of fluid between opposed surfaces, can be made. The sheet, which may be produced by various methods, comprises a matrix of an elastically-compressible material and discrete volumes of substantially-rigid material so distributed therein that upon compressing the sheet between opposed surfaces, initially the matrix material solely resists compression and only thereafter do the discrete volumes also resist compression. The distribution is also such that the mean rate of compression over any area of the sheet is substantially the same as the mean rate of compression over another area of the sheet when the areas are similarly compressed. The discrete volumes form compression stops to resist undesirable over-compression of the sheet. Such a sheet has application in the automotive industry, gaskets made therefrom being particularly suitable for fluid-sealing in vehicle engines.

Growing community of inventors

Tewkesbury, United Kingdom

Robin A Walker