Folks,
Three parts:
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I Explains some of the finer points of the Selco flyer, and covers routine questions.
II The Excel spreadsheet is a ROI Template that can be used to sell the gasket and be used as a Template for your customers actual ROI -Case History .
III Explains the physical demo of the Selco seal.
The Selco brochure:
The Selco seal is used for the afterburner fuel line connections on the F16. The actual gasket is shown to the right, and is about half the size of a business card. If it fails and the pilot hits the afterburner, jet go boom. It is subjected to extreme heat and pressure.
For every pump there are seven valves for every valve there are seven flanges. That’s a lot of flanges to sell gaskets for. Also, on the valve there is the bonnet gasket as well. Additionally, the plant is filled with difficult sealing applications. A great target are heat exchangers. Because they have a hot and cold side thermal cycling and gasket failure are wicked. Spiralwound gaskets and sheet gaskets tend to do a poor job.
Look carefully at the graphic of how the metal carrier on the Selco gasket works. Energizes and Encapsulates are the two key words. Energizing reduces the bolt load required to engage the gasket, and encapsulation prevents gasket blowouts. The best features of the metal (strength and springiness) are coupled with those of the sealing element (graphite- sealing and thermal stability) (PTFE- sealing and chemical inertness). The graphite is energized, eliminating its’ major weakness, and the PTFE is energized and encapsulated so it cannot cold flow.
A T-3 test is a certain leakage test using helium gas. The Selco seal is as leak tight as a weld, and registers below 10 ppm leakage. Most flanges are in the 500 ppm range.
API 607 is an American Petroleum Institute standard fire test for valves and related components. Bottom line is that the gasket can be used anywhere in a refinery.
10CFR50B is the Code of Federal Regulations having to do with the toughest services in nuclear plants, safety related services.
The EPA requirements for maximum emissions from flanges are 500 ppm for VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from chemical plants and refineries.
60-65% of sheet gasket is wasted (gets hard once the edge is opened to the air, or can’t be used)
The Selco gasket replaces all the pressure ranges shown. The warehouse or Stores likes this because they can cut their P/Ns by 2/3 with Selco. Maintenance and safety like it because the wrong rated gasket can’t be put in the flange.
The reason the Selco gasket cuts labor so much is threefold. One, the gasket never requires retorquing like spiralwounds and flat gaskets do. Two, it usually has double the life or more. Three, the self locator designs only require removing one bolt from a flange to install, and can be installed blind without risking mis-centering a gasket. The larger gaskets (like those for turbines and heat exchangers) are rigid, not floppy like sheet, and this makes the installation much easier for those of us with only two hands.
The surface finish recommended for a Spiralwound is 150-250 microinches. The Selco is much broader at 10-400 microinches. The Selco has the encapsulating metal carrier, so slippage and tearing of the sealing element against the flange face is not an issue.
Hammer the reliability issue. The Selco seal is often (but not always) more expensive than the competition (since there are no setup or tooling charges, the Selco tends to do very well in specialty applications like heat exchangers). The key is to make the customer realize that the gasket cost is nothing compared to product loss, production downtime, labor costs for repairing flanges, etc. As an example, one refinery was buying 11,000 gaskets for 3” 150# flanges every year. They were 67 cents each for some cheap gasket material. But they were paying $30 to install and monitor each of these lousy gaskets. The Selco seal might cost $10, but its’ cost of ownership was a third of what that other gasket’s was, because you install a Selco seal and forget about it. It is a permanent fix.
On the back side look at the “Types”, and then look over to the gaskets pictured on the right. The rectangular one is a valve bonnet gasket. The one with the “T” across it is for a heat exchanger. The one with the ears is a self locator (also known as a 15250) flange gasket. I prefer the two tine (not shown) to the four tine (shown). Both will accurately locate on any class of flange. The two tine (which your area manager can give you a sample of) only requires removing one bolt to install (the others will need to be loosened of course). The gasket is slipped in until it grounds against the bolt on the other side. Then the bolt that was removed is reinserted, and the bolts torqued evenly (after Chesterton 725 nickel anti-seize or 785 parting lube is applied, of course). The round gasket shown on the far right is a 1530. For customers used to Spiralwound gaskets, they often feel more comfortable with the 1530 over the self locator.
The flange sealing area relative to the crossectional area of the bolts is why the bolt stress is so high. For example, on a 3” flange, you may be looking at 10 square inches of clamped area for a Spiralwound, and 40 square inches for a full face sheet gasket. Four ½” bolts might have an area, all combined, of 0.70 square inches at their thread roots. Even if their yield strength is 150,000 psi, they will be pushing that limit to clamp a Spiralwound gasket properly.
The ROI template DOESN’T need to be custom done for each application. You do need to print a color copy and slip it into a sheet protector in your Chesterton binder. It shows the important points of why Selco saves them money. Their labor cost is probably $50 or more per hour. Once you include labor, pension, health, dental, admin and safety overhead, tools and equipment, etc. $50 per hour is very conservative.
The top line of the labor are those who directly support the guy turning a wrench in the field. Selco labor is less because we require less inventory, fewer flange sniffs, etc. The second line is the actual wrench turners labor. He may argue that it only takes ten minutes to fix a flange. Once you add in the time it takes to sit in the shift meeting, get assigned the workorder, pull the parts from the warehouse, grab his tool bag, place his lockout tag and walk into the unit to start turning wrenches he’ll be lucky if it is only a fifteen minute part of his day. The Selco doesn’t require retorquing, so it saves that labor as well. The product loss amounts are right from the EPA guidelines.
The Selco seal life is usually easily double that of the old gasket design.
This ROI can be used to convince the maintenance, safety, and air quality folks- and their associated managers- that the Selco seal is a good move for their plant.
Demoing the Selco seal. Your Area Manager has a two tine Selco gasket for you. LEAVE IT IN THE PLASTIC WRAPPER. They also should have a binder for you to put it in. There will be a pocket inside the front cover to store it. Note that the tines will fit two sizes of bolt and bolt circles, making it universal. It can also be installed blind without being mis-centered. There are two sealing rings of graphite on each side. Double the safety. The metal holder is corrugated and this is what energizes the graphite and encapsulates it as well so the seal will not blow out. Show the customer the Selco’s edge (there are double thick versions for wide flange gaps). This narrow edge means that the combined metal carrier and the graphite seal rings work together as a unit. The carrier provides the strength of steel, while the graphite rings accomplish the actual face sealing. A full face gasket has no metal support, so it is subject to tearing. If they object that the Selco is too thin, ask them which leaks more, a wide crack, or a narrow crack? The narrower the sealing gap, the easier and tighter the seal.
The key point is to get them to commit to Selco for an application in their plant. The ideal is that they accept the concept and begin changing to Selco, most preferably as warehouse stock. Secondary goal is to get an application for test. Selco WILL work with you on getting units for test. They don’t want potential accounts being ignored over a quibble on who is going to pay for an $8 gasket for test. That having been said, part of your role as a salesperson is to convince the customer to invest something into the process, so they have some skin in the game. It makes an eventual close a lot more likely.
Best Regards,
Scott Wales
Scott Wales
Western Region Manager
A.W. Chesterton Company
661-900-4309
FAX: 781-481-7677