Reconsideration on ConFlat Seal Mechanism by Gasket Deformation Measurements.

A ConFlat seal mechanism is most widely used in small and/or middle-sized ultrahigh vacuum system. The existing model on its seal mechanics, however, is somewhat curious and is undoubtedly to be reconsidered.Our experiments indicated that capturing with the contact of a disk gasket and a retaining counter is not a key factor for the sealing. We tested a taper-seal mechanism, which was newly designed to improve the inefficiency of the ConFlat mechanism. It was remarked under the tightening torque of 50 kgf cm that the seal area on a taper-seal type gasket was 3 times larger than that of a conventional disk gasket. High sealing reliability was thus achieved as expected which is mainly due to its wide seal contact area realized even for rather a hard gasket material.