APPLICATION
We were asked by one of our customers, a major food manufacturer, to look at an issue they were having with rotary seals on a specialist potato processing machine.
THE PROBLEM
The existing seals were a special rotary seal manufactured from a moulded, blue Polyurethane material, and there were 3 different sizes across the machines in service. The customer was finding that these seals in operation, were quickly wearing and was having to change them regularly due to the very short life span of the seals.
THE SOLUTION
The solution proposed by Evolution Seals was to replace the seals with a new custom designed machined seal, with a similar,special rotary profile and optimized for the housing size and application. The sealing material used was blue, high quality FDA Polyurethane.
OUTCOME
A small batch of seals were manufactured and provided to the customer for testing and evaluation purposes. Following thorough testing and trials, it was found that the new replacement seal was performing better than the original seal, providing a much longer sealing life than the original seals. Very happy with the performance of the new seal, the customer subsequently implemented the new replacement machined seal for production.
ACHIEVEMENT
A seven-fold increase in the lifespan of the rotary seals, from 3 to 4 days to 3 to 4 weeks, whilst reducing the typical cost of the seals by 80%, saving a total of £23,500 pa.
