Regular Article

Effective strain range-based prediction and analysis of the fatigue life of pipette shaft seal ring

¹ Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, Niigata 9502181, Japan
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Guangxi Technological College of Machinery and Electricity, Guangxi 530007, PR China
³ Vocational Basic Education Department of Vocational Technical college, Guangxi Normal University, Guangxi 541004, PR China
⁴ School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

^a Chenxue Wang and Qian Su contributed equally to the work.
^* e-mail: dguidance@163.com

Received: 4 June 2020
Accepted: 1 July 2021

Abstract

The accuracy of nucleic acid extraction and diagnosis depends on the sealing performance of the pipetting device. The rubber seal ring at the front end of the pipette shaft is a critical component for ensuring the sealing performance of the pipetting device. In this study, an accurate prediction and analysis were made on the fatigue life of the pipette shaft seal ring. ABAQUS was used to simulate the assembly process of pipette shaft seal ring and disposable tip, and the dangerous cross-section segments on the seal rings were preliminarily identified according to a stress nephogram. Based on the continuum damage mechanics theory, the fatigue life prediction model was built where the effective strain was taken as a damage parameter, and the fatigue life of the dangerous cross-section of the pipette shaft seal ring was calculated. By observing failed seal rings in actual use, it was found that the worn positions of the failed seal rings were the same as the sites of the shortest-lived node segments, thus verifying the accuracy of fatigue life prediction model and fatigue life analysis.