Around the world, designers of commercial and military aerospace and defense systems trust Bal Seal Engineering’s springs and seals to protect critical equipment from leakage and potential failure. Our products help make equipment smaller, lighter, faster, and more power efficient.
Why Choose Bal Seal for Aerospace & Defense?
Aerospace and defense engineers choose Bal Seal solutions when they need reliable sealing, conductivity, and EMI protection in applications where failure is not acceptable. Our components help improve uptime, reduce weight, and maintain consistent performance in extreme operating conditions.
Extreme Environment Performance
Spring-energized seals and canted coil springs are engineered to perform in cryogenic service, high-temperature environments, vacuum conditions, and demanding chemical exposure where conventional sealing and contact technologies fall short.
Flight-Proven Reliability
Bal Seal products have supported aerospace and defense platforms ranging from Apollo-era sampling tools to Mars Curiosity Rover mechanisms and modern avionics assemblies, providing dependable performance in mission-critical systems.
Lower SWaP, Higher Performance
Our 3-in-1 spring helps reduce system size, weight, and complexity while reliably managing current and signal. Our compact seal profiles balance low friction and sealing effectiveness.
Products for Aerospace & Defense
Bal Seal® Spring Energized Seal
Our spring-energized seals are precision-machined from PTFE and other premium polymers, and they’re engineered to deliver longer service life and more equipment uptime. Their spring energizers ensure even, consistent wear, and their jacket materials can be customized to meet specific temperature, pressure, speed and chemical compatibility requirements in rotary, reciprocating, oscillating, and static applications.
Product Features
- Controllable friction forces
- Excellent media and temperature resistance
- Wear-regulating spring energizer
Bal Spring® Canted Coil Spring
Our Bal Spring® canted coil spring mechanically fastens, conducts electricity, and shields sensitive electronics from EMI/RFI. Its independent coils, which serve as multiple contact points for optimal current carrying capability, ensure consistent, reliable connection—even under shock and vibration. The spring can also serve as a thermal management component.
Product Features
- Superior conductivity & power density
- Compact, space-saving profile
- Multifunctional for lighter, simpler designs
- Customizable insertion/removal forces
Commercial Applications
Defense Applications
Aerospace & Defense Sealing & Spring Solutions
Bal Seal Engineering supports aerospace and defense platforms with custom solutions for motion control, environmental sealing, conductivity, and EMI/RFI shielding performance.
Commercial & Military Aviation
Rotary shaft seals and spring-energized sealing solutions support hydraulic systems, actuators, fuel systems, and landing gear assemblies where low friction, long service life, and chemical resistance are critical.
Space & Satellite Systems
Custom seals precision-machined from advanced specialty polymer materials help protect mechanisms exposed to vacuum, radiation, cryogenic temperatures, and severe thermal cycling in satellite and exploration systems. Springs reduce assembly labor and improve signal integrity in waveguides.
Missiles, Munitions & Guided Systems
High-reliability seals and contact components are engineered for propulsion, guidance, and control systems that must maintain performance through shock, vibration, and extreme transient loads.
Gimbals, Pods & Turrets
Low-friction sealing solutions help improve pointing accuracy and smooth motion in radar, surveillance, and targeting systems, especially where stick-slip can degrade image or sensor performance.
Unmanned Aerial Systems
Compact seals and electrical contact springs support UAV propulsion, sensor payloads, and avionics modules where space, weight, and power constraints are especially important.
Ground Defense & Naval Systems
Sealing and shielding components help protect armored vehicle subsystems, shipboard electronics, and naval mechanisms from contamination, vibration, EMI, and aggressive operating environments.
Aerospace Industry Achievements
Sealing in Space
When it comes to space travel, we’re frequent flyers. During Apollo missions, astronauts used tools with our seals in them to sample and store lunar soil. We’ve been helping NASA and others reach for the stars ever since.
Making Tracks on Mars
As part of the Curiosity Rover mission, our seals traveled >140 million miles. Today, they’re still protecting the rover’s drive mechanisms from harsh Martian environments.
Supersonic Shielding
At nearly twice the speed of sound, even a little interference can cause big problems. That’s why defense aircraft designers use our Bal Spring® to shield sensitive onboard electronics against EMI.
Aerospace & Defense Customer Successes
“Bal Seals did fly as part of the Flight Rover Differential Mechanism on the MSL Curiosity Rover. I appreciate the work your team did for us in this application.”
Ben Riggs, Mars Curiosity Rover Engineer
NASA/JPL
“When I saw the Bal Spring®, a light bulb went off. The multi-point coil contact provided exceptional grounding – zero resistance across the path. It was the ideal solution.”
Hans Raven, Engineer
ATK/Northrop Grumman
Aerospace & Defense FAQs
Bal Seal Engineering offers spring-energized seals for rotary, reciprocating, oscillating, and static applications. These designs can be machined from PTFE, PEEK, UHMWPE, and other advanced polymers to match the temperature, pressure, speed, and media requirements of aerospace and defense systems.
Depending on material and design, Bal Seal solutions can operate from cryogenic temperatures to sustained elevated-temperature service, and from vacuum conditions to very high-pressure environments. Material selection is tailored to the specific aerospace or defense duty cycle.
Yes. Bal Seal products have supported applications ranging from Apollo-era lunar sampling tools to Mars Curiosity Rover mechanisms, and they are used in designs where vacuum compatibility, radiation resistance, and thermal cycling performance are essential.
Bal Spring® canted coil springs provide multiple continuous contact points around an enclosure interface, creating a low-impedance conductive path that helps attenuate EMI across a broad frequency range. They also avoid many of the compression-set issues associated with conventional shielding gaskets.
Yes. Bal Spring canted coil springs are multifunctional and can combine electrical conducting, EMI shielding, grounding, and mechanical holding in a single, compact part. This can reduce part count, assembly complexity, maintenance requirements, and overall system weight.
Common applications include gimbals, pods, turrets, actuators, landing gear, avionics enclosures, guidance systems, unmanned aerial systems, naval mechanisms, and satellite hardware. Each design is customized to the motion profile and operating environment of the application.
Request Aerospace & Defense Engineering Support
Need help evaluating a sealing, shielding, or conductivity challenge in an aerospace or defense application? Our engineering team can recommend the right materials, geometry, and spring technology for your operating environment.
Technical Resources
Industry Catalog
Application Bulletin
Material Data Sheet
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