Monthly Archives: March 2024
- March 27, 2024
Determining Low Temperature Ratings for Rubber Seals
Temperature ratings are typically published for industrial seals so you know where they can and cannot be used.
Many sealing products have testing standards, allowing manufacturers to publish results for easy product comparison.
However, there is no standard that tells you how to determine minimum and maximum temperatures, so how do companies come up with their ratings? Furthermore, if two suppliers offer the same type of material with vastly different temperature ratings, how do you know who is correct, or which number to trust?
Rubber isn’t just made of rubber
Rubber is made up of more than just the raw polymer (nitrile, neoprene, fluoroelastomer, etc.).
On its own, the raw polymer has very poor properties and is difficult to work with, so a variety of materials are added to improve performance and allow for
- March 26, 2024
Overcoming Seal Failures with Freudenberg EPDM 291
Sealing failures aren’t only a major headache, they can be extremely costly when you consider replacement costs, lost production time, wasted product due to the risk of contamination, and the time spent by maintenance staff to find and replace the seal. Unfortunately, this can be a very common issue when you utilize the wrong seal for your equipment. With every application having unique requirements, it can be challenging to pick the right seal to reliably perform at a high level. A large global manufacturer that specializes in health and well-being enhancement products was having just this issue with regularly facing significant challenges with the seals of their centrifugal equipment.
Seals for Centrifugal Equipment
Used to separate partials by their density from fluids, gases, and solids, this equipment spins incredibly fast typically at 100 to 200 plus revolutions per minute (RPMs).
- March 21, 2024
Gallagher Fluid Seals is a Parker Distributor is proud to be proud to be one of the few premier distributors to qualify as a “Parker Seal Technology Center (STC)”.
Double Chamfer Radial Seals
More often than not, an O-ring makes for a great sealing element. They seal over a wide range of pressure, temperature and tolerance. Normally they require very little room, are readily available, and easily sourced. However, there are specific applications that may be better suited for an alternate type of seal, such as a double chamfer radial seal.
- March 18, 2024
The 5 Ps of Compression Packing Installation
Pump and valve packing is a tried and true way to seal an application. But there are SO MANY styles of packing, choosing the correct braid configuration, fiber type, cross-section, etc., for your specific application can be extremely difficult.
Gallagher is here to help you along in the process. We represent numerous packing braiders, so we can find the best packing for you and your company, or even create a custom one. But where does the packing selection process start?
Lee Gillette, our GORE field sales representative, set out to answer that question in an article in Pumps and Systems magazine.
"The first step is to remember the '5 P's of Packing Installation,'" Gillete writes.
They are:
1. Proper selection
"Several braid configurations, packing fibers and combinations of packing fiber materials
- March 14, 2024
As a trusted supplier of high-performance sealing solutions to the pharmaceutical industry, the Garlock family of companies knows that gaskets can make or break a sanitary process. But how has material technology been evolving? This blog will discuss how material technologies are meeting manufacturing challenges to help pharmaceutical companies adapt to smaller batch sizes, frequent changeovers, leaner operations, vendor consolidation and stricter regulations.
- March 13, 2024
Hardware Recommendations - Dynamic O-Ring Gland Design
What is an O-Ring Gland?
The O-Ring gland (also known as O-Ring groove) is a very important design feature for anufacturing both efficient and cost-effective O-Rings.
The most important consideration for gland design is that it allows for proper and complete compression between the groove and the mating surface. While the shape of the O-Ring relies and depends on the application, shape is generally unimportant. The groove can be a variety of shapes; anything from triangular, rectangular, or dovetail.
- March 07, 2024
Vesconite Superlube Reduces Maintenance Requirements in Aeration Pump
A wastewater plant operator was being called in every couple of weeks to remove, disassemble, and clean wastewater pumps at one or other of the facilities that the company maintains.
Aeration pumps float on wastewater treatment dams and ensure that chemical decomposition of the dirty water occurs before the wastewater gets treated further. The pumps ensure that the water remains oxygenated and that there is aerobic decomposition rather than anaerobic decomposition, which usually results in volatile and poisonous gases such as methane.
The pump design that was in place was a standard vertical shaft pump design with an output of between 5 kW and 10 kW.
However, the bearing design was complex and prone to failure before the introduction of Vesconite materials.
- March 06, 2024
Metric O-Rings Are Now Available for Online Purchase
O-rings are the most common sealing product in the world; utilized across all types of sealing applications and industries. At its core, an O-ring is a circular sealing element with a circular cross section. Used effectively, an O-ring can seal practically all fluid, both liquid and gas. The wide range of potential liquids and gases that need to be sealed has necessitated the development of a wide range of materials.
GFS O-rings are manufactured in accordance with metric and imperial standards, such as: AS568, DIN, ISO 3601 and JIS. Additionally, O-rings can be manufactured to custom sizes upon request. Below are some of the most popular metric O-ring materials and durometers.