Garlock
- September 11, 2020
Garlock Style 215 Helps Steel Products Manufacturer With Harsh Acids
Garlock Style 215 Expansion Joints are PTFE concentric spool-type flexible couplings that are designed to reduce noise and compensate for expansion, contraction, and minor piping misalignment in chemical processing, air conditioning, and heating systems.
The complete assembly includes a fluorocarbon resin PTFE body, electroless nickle-plated ductile iron flanges, polyethylene-covered restriction zinc plated bolts, and stainless steel corrosion-resistant reinforcing rings.
Case Study
INDUSTRY
Primary Metals
CUSTOMER
South American manufacturer of flat and long steel products
BACKGROUND
Construction of two new facilities including a hot rolling mill.
CHALLENGES FACED
The plant was in need of expansion joints that could handle chemicals on their pickling lines. Pickling is a metal surface treatment used to remove impurities, such as stains, inorganic contaminants, rust or scale from ferrous metals. A solution called pickle liquor, which contains strong acids, is used to remove the surface impurities. It is commonly used to clean steel in various steel making processes. The line required an expansion joint with a PTFE tube to handle the pickle liquor which included hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, but a very short overall length for installation.
- June 09, 2020
The Garlock Family of Companies has launched a new fully-coated isolation gasket known as EVOLUTION.
EVOLUTION® Isolation Gaskets
The next generation of isolation gaskets, EVOLUTION®, features easier installation, tight sealing, high-temperature operation, no permeation, hydrotesting isolation, fire-safety and chemical-resistance.
Featuring a thinner, 1/8-inch design, EVOLUTION minimizes the difficulties encountered when attempting to install thicker isolating gaskets. The full-coating encapsulation allows the gasket to be hydrotested and left in the pipeline with the same isolation properties as before it was tested.
EVOLUTION's coating is highly resistant to abrasion and impact while providing chemical resistance to hydrogen sulphide (H2S), steam, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other chemicals often found in oil and gas pipelines. This fully encapsulated coating also prevents the need for expensive exotic cores, as it eliminates contact to exposed metal.
- April 24, 2020
How the raised surface profile of PTFE sheet gasket helped a midstream oil and gas processor address leaky pipes
Bolted flange-gasket connections in process piping systems are common and given little thought – unless they start to leak.
Chronic leakage proved to be an issue for one of Garlock's clients, a midstream oil and gas processor and services provider. The site processes, stores, and transports natural gas, liquefied natural gas and petroleum products. Garlock was brought in to provide a solution to the problem.
Successful connections are dependent on a variety of things, including the state of the flange surfaces, alignment, bolt and nut grade and strength, bolt and nut thread condition, lubrication, bolt tightening process, service conditions, and choice of gasket.
When a flange-gasket joint is assembled, the gasket must first be compressed to fill the gaps between the flange surfaces, creating a seal when system pressure is applied. Secondly, it must maintain that seal as the system is brought on-line and temperature and pressure escalate.
As the temperature increases, a gasket made of non-metallic materials such as rubber, fibre, PTFE and inorganic fillers is prone to lose thickness, that is, creep. And the thicker the gasket is, the
more it is prone to creep (1/8-inch thick gaskets creep more than 1/16-inch).The two most important performance qualities of a gasket are its ability to seal and its ability maintain that seal. These can be indicated by industry standard tests for sealability and creep.
On the surface, this particular case study would seem to be an application of little complexity. However, the details of the joint gave rise to several issues that caused the user chronic leakage problems. Here are the service conditions and background of this particular case:
- Temperature: 100°F to 120°F (38°C to 49°C)
- Flanges and use: 18-inch Class 150 raised face flanges used in the pipe systems of cooling tower water pumps. Multiple gaskets are on either side of spool piece
- Media: Water
- Pressure: 100 psig to 150 psig (7 bar-g to 10.3 bar-g)
- April 03, 2020
It’s highly likely that, at some point or another, you have seen braided packing in or out of its “natural environment.” Braided packing looks like rope and is cut into rings that wrap around a rod. While packing used to be available in fairly limited styles, the mechanical packing industry has expanded over time, resulting in braided packing that is available in everything from flexible graphite to fiberglass yarn. Let’s dive into this topic, and discuss the different materials from which braided packing is made in this day and age.
Fiberglass Rope
One of the reasons why fiberglass ropes are favored for braided is that it does not burn. It can be used in continuous temperatures, up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes it perfect for products that are going to exist in high pressure, high-temperature environments. Furthermore, E glass in particular consists of
- March 27, 2020
Facility Issue:
In a brine concentrator, an original competitor’s expansion joint failed upon start up.
Industry:
Water Treatment
Background of the Facility:
This facility is a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) power plant. Water is initially pumped from a well, pre-treated, used as process water, then reclaimed and retreated with a Brine Concentrator for use in their cooling towers. No city water is used and no waste water is disposed of from the site.
Brine concentrators use thermal energy to evaporate water, which is subsequently condensed and discharged as clean distilled water.
Brine Concentrators are also used in water treatment facilities in desalination plants, mining operations and well drilling operations in the oil & gas industry.
- Size: 24 “x 10” FF
- Temperature: 221° F
- Media: Brine Slurry
- Pressure: 30 psi
Observation:
The original expansion
- February 28, 2020
GYLON EPIX® is a family of gaskets that effectively seals a broader range of applications and is more forgiving during the installation process. It allows the end user to save valuable turn-around time, reduce re-work, and lower costs, helping them to finish ahead of schedule and under budget.
GYLON EPIX® features a hexagonal surface profile that provides the torque retention and blowout resistance of a thin gasket and the conformability of a thicker gasket. GYLON EPIX Style 3504 is a high performance, aluminosilicate microsphere filled PTFE sheet material designed for use in moderate concentrations of acids, and caustics, as well as hydrocarbons, refrigerants, and more.
INDUSTRY
Chemical
CUSTOMER
Chemical Manufacturer and Distributor
BACKGROUND
Loading stations are very critical in the chemical industry as flanges are disassembled and reassembled everyday.
CHALLENGES
- January 21, 2020
Garlock Style 204 Rubber Expansion Joint
The Style 204 family of spool-type expansion joints are manufactured with the industry standard narrow arch design. This style is intended to be used in dynamic conditions where both pressure and vacuum concerns are present.
Features and Benefits
- Fully laboratory and field tested for long life and exceptional reliability
- High pressure and vacuum resistance offer increased safety and ensure suitability for a wide range of applications
- Single and multi-arch designs are available for a range of movement capabilities
- Concentric and eccentric reducing configurations can be provided to join piping of unequal diameters
- January 08, 2020
Bacteria accumulation can ruin product and put consumer health at risk.
Bacteria accumulation is a serious issue in the food manufacturing industry - it can ruin product and put consumer health at risk.
While many know that Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent choice for use in diaphragms and gaskets, most do not realize that there exist varying grades of PTFE. Some lower cost PTFE offerings may contain an excessive volume of pores within their structure which can harbor organic contaminants such as bacteria.
To address this problem, a calendared manufacturing process is used. Calendared PTFE is a premium grade PTFE designed for use in aseptic applications requiring ultra-high purity standards. It is ideal for use in food, pharmaceuticals and a variety of clean markets.
Distinguished by an extremely low void content, calendared PTFE resists permeation and the accumulation of foreign matter, reducing the risk of harboring unwanted bacteria or residual media.
To achieve this, the unique manufacturing process orients the chains of PTFE in a lattice-like structure that reduces voids in the material and provides it with biaxial strength. This unique structure also delivers a very high flex life. When tested in an MIT Folding Endurance Tester, the flex life of calendared PTFE is four-times greater than conventional PTFE materials.
Unlike the skived process that is commonly used for PTFE manufacturing, the calendaring process produces uniform sheets of material with consistent physical properties. This gives calendared PTFE a renowned reputation for predictable performance and quality. The opposite is true for skived PTFE where variable properties lead to varying performance and reliability.
- December 13, 2019
Gylon Epix's patterned material provides enhanced compressibility for better sealing
Gaskets are ubiquitous components in a processing plant. Every flange, equipment joint and connection point will have some form of gasket to prevent fluids from compromising (i.e., leaking from) a process system. However, effective sealing can pose challenges. A new form of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) gasket, Gylon Epix, already has successfully addressed a number of persistent problems at plants.
The gasket, which is available in 3⁄32-in.-thick, 60-in. × 60-in. sheets, features a raised hexagonal pattern (Figure 1). It exhibits
- October 15, 2019
A flexible choice can adapt to permanent misalignment, preventing future damage.
Keeping aging facilities and equipment maintained is an ever-changing task that can jeopardize the goal of maximizing uptime. Years of thermal cycling, vibration or foundation settling can disorient piping or pumps. Piping engineers will use rubber expansion joints to account for these types of challenges in a rigid piping system. Permanent misalignment can set in after years of operation. The original-size expansion joint could no longer be the best fit when it comes time to replace.
Replacing a permanently misaligned expansion joint connection with the original part could lead to reduced service life and/or missed expectations of the new expansion joint. Determining the best way to accommodate this when it comes time to replace the existing expansion joint can have long-term effects on reliability. Since the original components may not fit in the newly disoriented flange connection, they are limited in their reliability.
Types of Customization & Benefits
Expansion joints are designed to withstand the pressure retention of rigid pipes, yet be flexible and absorb misalignment induced in these systems. However, there are limits to exactly how much flexibility can be absorbed before damage occurs. Using this flexibility to connect two misaligned pipe flanges will take away from how much movement can be absorbed during the actual operational period when the system is running.
Attempting to retrofit a standard-size expansion joint to connect a misaligned pipe connection can put excessive stress on the component and could lead to a shorter operational service life. For this reason, the Fluid Sealing Association (FSA) recommends no greater than ±1/8-inch misalignment of the pipe flanges during installation. Depending on the severity of misalignment, it can be advantageous to implement custom expansion joints to minimize the stresses that cause these joints to fail or become damaged during installation.
Maintenance crews can also benefit by having a component that will fit precisely. Concerns for safety are present when attempting to put enormous pressure to compress, elongate or offset the joint so it will fit in place.
Custom expansion joints, made-to-fit, provide long-term dependability and can be designed in many orientations. To prevent overexertion, expansion joints are often constructed to connect nonstandard distances between pipe flanges. Other modes of misalignment can connect pipe flanges that are no longer centered.Face-to-Face Tailoring
Years of cycling, wear and other factors can contribute to the disorientation of a particular pipe connection. The length of an expansion joint, a dimension commonly referred to as face-to-face, bridges the gap between two parallel pipe flanges. A common industry problem is created when foundations settle and piping support structures transition lower than where it was originally constructed (Image 1). Expansion joints are designed to account for this, but choosing the correct replacement will make the difference between continued reliable service life or system failure.
Stretching an expansion joint to fit the changed flange connection often results in immediate damage that is only sometimes visual to the naked eye. A stress point on the outer cover of the expansion joint will usually become visible at the transition corner between the flat portion and the base of the arch in the form of a crack. The severity of cracking, elongation and settling will be aggravated when pressure in the pipeline is turned on.
Depending on nominal pipe size, industry standards will include standard face-to-face sizes of 6, 8, 10 or 12 inches, according to the FSA. When a standard 6-inch face-to-face joint is removed, the length between flanges could have been elongated to 7 inches or more. Many expansion joint consumers are not aware of the capability to build the expansion joint to the required nonstandard 7-inch face-to-face since it is not a standard offering. Building the replacement expansion joint to the nonstandard 7-inch face-to-face will eliminate any initial stress imposed on the joint.