Minimum clearance between the U-cup seal groove of a piston and a cylinder bore to ensure against extrusion of the U-cup ring and leakage of working fluids is an important design parameter for a seal designer in hydraulic cylinder applications. Therefore, typical U-cup seal of a hydraulic actuator has been analyzed as a function of a sealing gap using the nonlinear FEM software MARC. In this study, the useful design data were presented as a function of the sealing gap and the sealed hydraulic pressure.