Throughout our 50 year history, Apple Rubber Products has always embraced the challenge of exploring and developing sealing solutions and manufacturing methods to their fullest extent. More than selling quality products, we pride ourselves on solving problems. That’s why every member of the Apple Rubber team is committed to our customers’ success.
What is the Seal Design Guide?
The expertise and commitment of our team members, combined with direction from Quinlan and Company, is what led to the creation of Apple Rubber’s original Seal Design Guide in 1989, and to all of its subsequent editions. The information presented in our guide is distilled from experience dating back to our founding in 1971, collaboration with experts in industries ranging from automotive to aerospace, and the most up-to-date sealing industry resources available.
The most successful seal designs are the result of what we call “Seal Thinking™” the careful application of sealing concepts that are basic, but not obvious or intuitive. Our seal design guide makes Seal Thinking™ much more accessible. The “Rules of Thumb” section is the result of hundreds of conversations with gifted engineers about how a successful design is achieved.
We use the o-ring as an example in our discussions of seal design principles throughout our guide. These cover the basic concepts of o-ring design; seal types and gland design, critical operating environmental factors, a material selection guide, troubleshooting, ordering procedures, o-ring size charts, and much more.
Inspired by our dedication to problem solving, we developed our guide as a resource for designing successful sealing solutions. It has evidently proved to be a valuable resource, since immediately following its release, our guide became (and still remains) the most comprehensive and popular seal design resource available, with hundreds of thousands of copies distributed. We at Apple Rubber are deeply grateful for the engineers, manufacturers, customer service personnel, quality assurance staff, and countless others who make not only our guide, but the work we are proud to do everyday, possible.
Looking for help?
There are so many types and variations of seals that it is impossible to cover them all in one guide. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions regarding topics from the Seal Design Guide or subjects we’ve yet to cover!