Just four days to solve a John Crane vessel seal problem behind three unnecessary seal changes that had created £20,000 repair and £120,000 production costs over the previous three months.
Client challenge
A thermoplastics manufacturer’s protracted problems with a coaxial seal cartridge on a critical stainless steel production vessel created significant production problems.
The NASH team was asked to identify and eliminate the cause of three sequential failures involving a John Crane T151 Coaxial Cartridge in as many months.
Our response
The unit reached us on a Friday. We stripped and inspected it immediately to find that:
- Poor wedge ring manufacture caused the inboard stationery seal ring to fracture into six parts
Over the weekend, we:
- Repaired the cartridge with new inboard and outboard stationery faces
- Fitted new elastomers, springs and fasteners
- Re-surfaced the rotary seal ring with chrome oxide; the ring was also lapped
Benefits
- The unit was tested, back on site, fitted and re-commissioned by Monday lunchtime
- The performance of a critical production vessel was restored
- Unnecessary repair costs and production losses were eliminated
- Further high costs were avoided
- Unnecessary future seal changes were eliminated