Pipeotech extends gas-tight gasket warranty to cryogenic applications
Launched in 2015, the DeltaV-Seal is a CNC-manufactured, one-piece metal gasket featuring sharp sealing ‘rings’ that deform upon installation to form a gas-tight fit with flanges. It never needs re-tightening, reducing the need for pipeline maintenance. In 2020, Pipeotech launched the sealing industry’s first 10-year gas-tight limited warranty.
Pipeotech has successfully concluded leakage tests of a bolted flange joint (BFJ) under cryogenic conditions in a laboratory testing programme conducted with Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland.
The BFJ contained a DN40/PN40 material 316L DeltaV-Seal with a sealing length of 0.2 metres and containing helium pressures from 10 bar to 100 bar.
The results show that the DeltaV-Seal maintains a tightness level higher than 10-8 mg/s at temperatures down to -196°C at all tested pressures. The seal was also shown to expand and contract at same rate as the temperature fluctuations, confirming in action that extreme temperature fluctuations do not affect the tightness of the seal.
The Wroclaw lab carried out exactly the same tests under the same cryogenic conditions on 20 to 30 competing high-performance gaskets with graphite or PTFE sealing components. “The results showed that the DeltaV-Seal is more than 10,000 times tighter at 8 bar, which was the highest applied test pressure for these other gaskets. This clearly puts it in a league of its own,” said Pipeotech CEO Henrik Sollie..
“The fact that the leakage rate did not significantly change up to a pressure of 100 bar also added to our confidence in extending the 10-year warranty,” he added.
