Wear rings or Guide Strips / bands, absorbs forces and side loading, preventing metal to metal contact. Wear rings can be used for both piston and rod seal functions. They come in fabric based & glass filled nylon or polymer of polyamide.
Piston Seals are designed and manufactured to optimize leakage control. Piston Seals offer sealing contact between the cylinder head and cylinder bore, allowing pressure to build during stroke movement. There are different types of piston seal as you can see in above images, some are made up of Polyurethane, Carbon graphite PTFE, Bronze filled, Glass filled, and many more.