Lessons from Seal Upgrades: Choosing the Right Design to Cut Costs
AESSEAL has announced several seal upgrade cases showing that choosing the right configuration can significantly reduce maintenance costs. These are figures released by the manufacturer, and actual results will vary depending on the conditions of each factory.
Some announced cases
- A petrochemical company eliminated seal failures and saved over £14,000 per pump after using the CAPI A single seal.
- The Tongaat Hulett sugar mill used the Convertor II cartridge seal and operated continuously for 17 years without replacement.
- A polyethylene plant used the MagTecta seal for the blower, increasing reliability four times and saving €144,000 in maintenance costs over more than 30 months.
- A Canadian oil refinery used a single API push seal and operated stably for 38 months, saving over $300,000 CAD.
Total cost of ownership is more important than purchase price
The cost of a seal includes the purchase price, replacement labor, downtime, lost product, cooling water, and environmental handling costs. A cheap seal that fails many times is often more expensive than a better seal that lasts longer.
What can be concluded
Most of the savings come from finding the correct cause of failure, choosing the right type of seal for the medium and operating conditions, and then installing it correctly. Cartridge seals help reduce installation errors, while choosing a simpler configuration when conditions permit helps reduce costs and auxiliary systems.
How to calculate the effectiveness of upgrading yourself
- Statistic the number of seal replacements and the cost of each replacement over several years.
- Add the cost of downtime and lost product.
- Compare with the cost of new seals and the payback period.
Reference
AESSEAL news section. The article was compiled and reinterpreted by SNS-VN; brand names belong to their owners.
