Aircraft Seals and Gaskets

Materials for Aircraft Seals and Gaskets

Most aircraft seals and gaskets are made from elastomers, rubbery materials that retain their elasticity when stretched. ASTM D2000 provides a standard way to classify these compounds and a “common language” for buyers and suppliers to use. Although ASTM D2000 was developed for the automotive industry, it’s now used in all industries and on many part drawings.

Fabrication and Distribution

Elasto Proxy isn’t a rubber manufacturer, but we’ve partnered with compounders who can provide us with aviation-grade materials as sheets, rolls, or extrusions. We can help you with material selection and then support your operations as either as a fabricator or a distributor, depending on what you need. When you consider your true costs, outsourcing your fabrication to us might be more cost-effective.

Aircraft Elastomers and Non-Rubber Materials

Typically, Elasto Proxy supplies aircraft seals and gaskets made from these types of elastomers

• silicones and fluorosilicones
• FKM (Viton®)
• neoprene
• EPDM
• urethanes and polyurethanes

These aren’t the only aircraft materials we work with, however, and we can also supply you with rubber-to-metal bonded assemblies for vibration control or fiber-reinforced (FRP) plastic parts for airframe structures. We also work with thermal or acoustic foams such as polyester, urethane, polyurethane, and melamine, and can fabricate metal components that attach to aircraft seals and gaskets.

Standards and Specifications for Aircraft Rubber Gaskets

ASTM D2000 provides a standard way to classify rubber, but there are also specifications that aviation and aerospace materials need to meet. For example, silicone seals or fluorosilicone gaskets may need to meet Aerospace Materials Specifications (AMS) from SAE International or comply with MIL-DTL-25988, a U.S. military detail (DTL) specification that covers oil-resistant and fuel-resistant elastomers.

Civilian, military, and commercial aircraft typically use different standards, but there are also standards from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to consider. Often, these OEM standards address passenger safety by limiting potential exposure to flame, smoke, and toxicity (FST) within aircraft cabins. For example:

• Bombardier business aircraft use interior materials that comply with SMP 800-C
• Airbus uses the ABD 031 standard for fire testing and FST
• Boeing standards include BSS 7238 for smoke density and BSS 7249 for toxicity

With EMI aircraft gaskets for military aviation, the MIL-DTL-83528 standard defines requirements for specific levels of shielding. EMI gaskets are also needed in commercial and civilian aviation because of the proliferation of electronic components aboard aircraft and the increasing deployment of 5G networks, which can interfere with onboard instrumentation.   

Material Costs and MOQs

Specifications-grade materials cost more than commodity compounds, so it’s important to avoid buying more rubber than you really need. With the strength of Elasto Proxy’s supplier network and our warehousing services, we can offer lower minimum order quantities (MOQs) if you share your sales forecast with us and issue a blanket purchase order with periodic releases.

For example, let’s say you can forecast all of the AMS 3304 solid silicone sheeting that you’ll need for a year. The total is enough for a volume discount but you order only small quantities at a time. You could order a year’s worth of material from Elasto Proxy, have us store it for you in our warehouses, and then ship it to you each week. You can still get a discount but without paying for all the sheets at one time.