Re: RE: [Piping Design] flange failure

I take it your flanges are ANSI 150#. Compressed 1.5mm thick non asbestos fibre is normally suitable for hydrocarbons at those low pressures. Apparently it is covered by BS 7531 as grade X.

A good crew to talk to would be your local gasket supplier. They should have a technical department that would put you onto the best for the service to buy in your area.

The problem with rubbers in that service is that hydrocarbons swell rubber so it is generally not a good material to use. Some rubbers are resistant, Buna N being the most common. Still, it is seldom used as a raise face gasket.

Regarding bolt torque. One seldom sees much attention paid to that on simple pipeline joints. Belt the thing up and forget about it. If it leaks after that you would have to wonder if the flanges are aligned properly or if the flange is overstressed with pipe loads. At ambient temperatures that is highly unlikely to occur

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Thu Jan 29 17:55:00 2004