Applications
The following are case histories and applications highlights of the performance advantage provided by PolyMod® and UltraMod® seals. If you would like to share your experience where PolyMod® or UltraMod® solved your problem, please contact us today and we will happily add it to this page.
Pneumatic Cylinder:
Problem: Pneumatic cylinders in high-speed food packing machinery were being returned for warranty problems. Cylinders warranted for 50,000 cycles were often being returned for seal replacement after less than 12,000 cycles. Production personnel had to be taken off the assembly line to replace seals. Also, cylinders were being rejected due to high initial breakout pressures.
Solution: PolyMod® nitrile (NBR PM) O-Rings, Q-Rings, and PolyTee™ seals provided the lowest breakout pressures, even lower than equivalent internally lubed seals. PolyMod® seals by decreasing wear increased the cycle life and eliminated costly warranty repairs.
Spool Seals:
Problem: Internally lubed spool seals in an automotive plant were experiencing premature wear problems because the internal lubricant was leaching out in the presence of the airline lubricant.
Solution: PolyMod® FKM Q-Rings and O-Rings were qualified to 8 million cycles with consistently lower shift pressures. No adverse airline lubricant or elastomer problems were observed.
Medical Subcutaneous Injection Gun:
Problem: A customer introducing a new generation medical injection gun required 10 injections per minute with no sticking of the device. The seals had to be capable of being repeatedly sterilized in steam or chemical sterilization at 120°C. Seal life had to be at least 10,000 injections.
Solution: PolyMod® FKM O-Rings were qualified for all the seals in the injection gun. The PolyMod® FKM provided over 10,000 continuous injections with no hangups or sticking eliminating the previous need for grease and prolonging seal life in the process.
Delrin Couplings:
Problem: Delrin couplings were performing inconsistently. They had to be used without a lubricant and the pull forces in this situation varied from 3.5 to 12 pounds.
Solution: PolyMod® O-Rings were used and pull forces ranged from 3 to 6 pounds with very consistent performance.
Explosion Proof Air Valves:
Problem: Explosion proof air valves designed for outdoor cold temperature usage could not meet their life cycle requirements. The rounded lip U-Cup seals molded from a low temperature NBR material could not meet the 29 million life cycle requirement. On disassembly the seals were badly worn and the grease that was originally present during assembly had disappeared.
Solution: PolyMod® NBR U-cups performed 29 million short stroke cycles at a rate of 150 cycles per minute and maintained seal-ability on a 6061-aluminum hard coat anodized shaft. The valves exhibited bubble tight shut off of 20 psi at -65°F. The PolyMod® seals showed no visible signs of wear, and the installation grease was still present indicating no significant temperature excursions due to friction had occurred.
Wheel Bearing Radial Lip Seals:
Problem: A manufacturer of automotive wheel bearing assemblies was using ethylene acrylic seals that had high torque. The manufacturer wanted to reduce energy consumption by reducing torque.
Solution: PolyMod® ethylene acrylic wheel bearing seals not only reduced torque significantly, and hence energy consumption, but also increased seal life.
Automotive Pneumatic Couplings:
Problem: A manufacturer of a special coupling assembly used in a high temperature gasoline application was having assembly problems due to the high friction of the Square Rings being used.
Solution: PolyMod® Square Rings were substituted. These had the lowest friction of all the seals that were tested and proved to be fully compatible in the application with no excessive swelling.
