As electronics become more central to vehicles, industrial machines, and connected devices, the demands placed on control units are intensifying. Higher power density, compact housings, complex sensor arrays, and mixed-material assemblies all increase the risk of moisture and particle ingress. A strong sealing strategy is no longer an afterthought. It must be engineered into the product from the first design iteration.
This article outlines how design engineers can build reliable sealing systems for next-generation control units and how deterministic leak testing supports both development and production.
EV modules, telecom control boxes, and industrial automation units are exposed to more aggressive conditions than previous generations.
Modern challenges include:
These trends make sealing more complex and increase the need for precise, repeatable verification during development and manufacturing.
A gasket or seal performs best within a specific compression range. Uneven clamping or variable torque leads to micro-gaps that may not appear during initial testing but cause problems later.
Small variations in flatness, draft angles, or wall thickness affect sealing pressure. Aligning mechanical tolerances with sealing requirements prevents expensive redesigns late in development.
Plastics, metals, adhesives, and elastomers behave differently across temperature cycles. Understanding these behaviours is essential for predicting long-term sealing performance.
Cable entries, membrane vents, and screw bosses introduce risk. Reducing the number of interfaces simplifies sealing and testing.
Waiting until production to verify sealing performance often leads to surprises. Instead, deterministic leak testing during prototype stages helps engineering teams:
Nolek’s high-sensitivity pressure decay instruments, developed in-house, provide stable and repeatable measurements ideal for early-stage engineering assessments.
Once a design is finalised, manufacturers need test systems that keep up with production speeds while maintaining traceability.
Our CES platform supports:
This enables control unit manufacturers to adopt reliable sealing strategies at scale.
A well-engineered sealing system does more than prevent field failures. It saves cost across the product lifecycle:
Manufacturers who build sealing into the design process reduce long-term operations cost and achieve more reliable performance in the field.
Next-generation control units demand a more deliberate and robust sealing strategy than ever before. By integrating deterministic leak testing into both design and production, manufacturers can create electronics that withstand real-world conditions while maintaining full traceability and compliance.
Our tailored, automation-ready CES systems give engineering teams the sensitivity, repeatability, and speed they need to support reliable sealing from prototype to global production.