Expansion joints for pipework are often made from corrugated metal, especially when handling liquids or for operating pressures significantly above atmospheric. Metal expansion joints are outside the scope of the ESA guide.

Seal companies purchase carbon/graphite seal faces from one of several carbon manufacturers. The seal companies pay for the necessary molds and then retain the exclusive use of them. A good seal face would be a mixture of carbon, graphite and nothing else. The carbon is purchased as a byproduct of a manufacturing process while the graphite is mined with the main sources being in Canada and Madagascar.

In today’s global environment, the “one size fits all” approach is used for so many products that we expect it to apply to just about everything. In the mechanical seal industry, one problem with that philosophy is the definition of the word all. Mechanical seals must live in literally every environment under the sun-from extreme hot to extreme cold, wet to dry, solid to gas, acidic to caustic and so on. Until relatively recently, a vast variety of cartridge mechanical seals were needed to accommodate these pump applications.

Use the proper tools and a good pair of eyes to eliminate almost all your belt drive problems. Did you know that premature belt drive failures can be attributed to just a half-dozen commonly encountered problems? Or that all it takes to solve these problems is just a few tools and using your head? Other than normal wear and use, the most common sources of belt drive failures are 1) improper tension, 2) misalignment, 3) handling, 4) hardware, 5) environmental factors, and 6) design factors.

The cost of replacement parts, labor, standby inventory, and downtime can have a devastating effect on a plant’s bottom line. Eliminating even one of them by drying a compressed air system will offset the cost of installing and operating the equipment. When pneumatic components wear or become corroded as a result of moisture, they consume more compressed air – and lose energy efficiency. When this wear or corrosion becomes great enough, components must be repaired or replaced – increasing operating expense.

My interest in writing this article was to explore one way to reduce the cost of manufacturing and installing new boilers: improved insulation practices within the boiler island. It is my opinion that the power industry requires a smarter and more economical insulation design on steam-generating boiler walls, especially when considering the rising cost and reduced availability of qualified field labor. Yes, the potential cost savings with improved insulation practices is small compared to the total plant cost, but every dollar saved is important.

One of the important ingredients for making and keeping a reliable electrical connection is clean contact surfaces. When initial contact is made between electrical contact surfaces, no matter how smooth and level the surfaces, only a few high points touch. As the contact force increases, more points make contact until at optimum force most of the metal-to-metal contact has been accomplished. Contact theory tells us that these points are actually cold welds.

Cavitation means that cavities are forming in the liquid that we are pumping. When these cavities form at the suction of the pump several things happen all at once. The cavities form for five basic reasons and it is common practice to lump all of them into the general classification of cavitation. This is an error because we will learn that to correct each of these conditions we must understand why they occur and how to fix them.

Bearing life is defined as the length of time, or the number of revolutions, until a fatigue spall of a specific size develops. This spall size, regardless of the size of the bearing, is defined by an area of 0.01 inch2 (6 mm2). This life depends on many different factors such as loading, speed, lubrication, fitting, setting, operating temperature, contamination, maintenance, plus many other environmental factors. Due to all these factors, the life of an individual bearing is impossible to predict precisely.