Optimum sealing material for flange gaskets

In today’s processing plants, there are thousands of lengths of piping and at each juncture, a coupling. These are sealed with clamp gaskets and O-Rings. Though the individual cost of these may be relatively insignificant, their cost in terms of maintenance can be extremely high.

Sealing issue:

Constantly in contact with system media and subject to aggressive cleaning regimes, flange gaskets used to seal pipe work connections within a processing system of a global pharmaceutical company deteriorated quickly. Our customer wanted to reduce maintenance costs by extending intervals between planned maintenance cost-effectively. However, sealing integrity could not be compromised, as any contamination involved a major cost in scrapping production batches.

Sealing requirements:

• Withstand mixture of alkaline and acidic CIP medias
• Compliant with FDA, USP Class VI and 3-A standards
• Long seal life to extend intervals between planned maintenance

Solution:

Trelleborg Sealing Solutions has undertaken a number of tests to determine the optimum material for use in CIP chemicals. Based upon these results, it was recommended that the flange gaskets were replaced by ones manufactured in EPDM E7502.

Result:

The change in material for the flange gaskets proved to extend seal life and achieved the objective of increased productivity, extending meantime between planned maintenance. In addition, as E7502 was specifically engineered for aseptic applications, contamination was reduced.