O-Ring failures, failure analysis, prevention and correction

The main mechanisms of failure

  • systematic failure analysis
  • influence of media and heat
  • further physical reasons of failure
  • typical methods to indentify the failure mechanism
  • simple polymer-identification test methods
  • statistical analysis of the failure-reason
  • hit-list of failures

    Influence of media

  • chemical attack
  • swelling and shrinkage
  • examples of bad combinations
  • failure examples with service conditions
  • how to distinguish between swelling and chemical attack
  • chemical attck by CIP-, SIP-media and chloramines

    Failure due to ageing, heat and ozone

  • overheating
  • wrong compound selection
  • influence of service-time
  • how to distinguish between ageing and chemical attack
  • heavy metals and rubber
  • ozone-cracking
  • poor level of vulcanization
  • shrinkage due to plasticizers
  • failure examples

    Mechanical/physical failure reasons

  • statistical table of specific failure reasons
  • failure due to non-positive connection
  • influence of elevated temperature on physical resistance
  • high deformation failures
  • sharp-cut edges
  • overfilling
  • assembling errors
  • assembling hints
  • gap-extrusion
  • wear
  • spiral failures
  • explosive decompression and overheating
  • air in hydraulic fluids