On Wednesday, in the third biennial event of its kind, the Fluid Sealing Assn. (FSA; Booth 330) will honor Flexitallic LP (Booth 1245) as the Grand Champion of the 2007 Sealing Solutions Award. FSA invites you to join them at the award presentation, which will take place at 11:00 a.m. in the northwest corner of the exhibit hall.
Jointly sponsored by Chemical Engineering (Booth 703), these awards recognize the contributions of the FSA and its member companies through leakage reduction, mastering compliance with EPA Fugitive Emission Standards and/or achieving lower water usage and energy consumption through new or existing processes and/or products, thereby providing a better living environment.
Flexitallic’s achievement involved a major refiner in Texas that was having problems with emissions and flash fires due to graphite gaskets that oxidized at elevated temperatures. After consultation, Flexitallic engineers recommended that the facility switch to Thermiculite 835, a spiral wound gaskets with heat-treated winding wire and Thermiculite filler material. The change resulted in the prevention of fugitive emissions and flash fires, and the unit was able to eliminate costly downtimes that occurred when having to replace the oxidized graphite gaskets.
Eight FSA member companies submitted eleven entries into this year’s competition. They were Bachmann Dampjoint, Flexitallic LP, Flowserve Flow Solutions Div., Garlock Sealing Technologies (Booth 844), John Crane Mechanical Seals (Booth 815), Lamons Gasket Co. (Booth 445), PPC Mechanical Seals, and Slade, Inc.
Last year, the top prize and one of the finalist awards involved water conservation. The Grand Champion award went to Garlock Sealing Technologies together with customer Georgia Pacific Corp. — Garlock’s engineered compression-packing sets installed on 29 applications involving pumps, agitators digesters and other equipment at a Georgia Pacific paper mill reduced its excess-water consumption by 64 million gal/yr.
The finalist feat by General Rubber Corp. plus customer Morex, Inc., concerned the use of nearly 100 large rubber expansion joints plus an innovative flange design to accommodate thermal stresses in a network of fiberglass-reinforced pipes in a Morex cooling-water system. The other finalist salute went to PPC Mechanical Seals plus customer Nalco Co., for success (over more than four years, in one instance) with noncontacting, cartridge inert gas-liftoff seals on pumps at a Nalco acrylonitrile plant.
This year’s winning entry, as well as past winners, may be viewed at www.fluidsealing.com