MechChem Africa December 2019/January 2020

⎪ Pump systems, pipes, valves and seals ⎪

• Less wasted product means more money saved. Even water is an expensive com- modity and less clean-up of the area will be needed. In addition, of course, there are themassively reduced safety risks associated with the bet- ter sealing performance of mechanical seals, which are further enhancedby the use of dual mechanical seals. Many of the developed world’s refinery and petrochemical processing facilitieswere built over 30 years ago and the dependability of the legacy pumps being used, coupled with their high cost, often restrict their replace- ment. Many of these have been upgraded to use single mechanical seals, but these no longer meet current safety requirements. Upgrading to modern sealing devices that incorporate adouble seal arrangement – such as the API 682 compliant dual mechanical sealing solution – has to be implemented to avoid wholescale pump replacements or upgrades. The physical space required for many of today’s API compliant dual mechanical seals does not lend itself to their installation on old pumps with small seal chambers (stuffing boxes).Inaddition,thecostandinconvenience of pumpmodificationor replacement inorder to accommodate traditional API 682 dual cartridge seal designs can be considerable. AESSEAL’s CAPI-TXS™ is an innovative solution. This dual cartridge mechanical seal has been designed specifically for legacy pumps found in abundance in the oil and gas industry. UsingAPI 682-qualified componen- try in a compact modern design has enabled theCAPI cartridge seal tofit almost all pumps withoutmodification to the seal chamber. Key advantages include: Dual mechanical seal upgrades for the oil and gas industry

• The CAPI-TXS reduces life- cycle costs, upgrade costs and lead times. • It enables users to extend the useful life of their older process pumps while simul- taneously meeting 21 st cen- tury safety and emissions requirements. • The compact dual mechani- cal seal fits most legacy pro- cesspumpswithout theneed to modify the pump casing, which significantly reduces upgrade costs. • An upgrade using the CAPI- TXS also means the large capital costs associatedwith replacing the pump or fitting a ‘backpull out’ unit are com- pletely avoided.

AESSEAL’s family of CAPI-TXS™ API 682 dual mechanical seals, which are designed specifically to fit legacy pumps in the oil and gas industry.

• Project execution canbeboth swift andef- ficient becauseaCAPI-TXSupgrade canbe performedduringtheregularmaintenance cycle. It is a simplematter of replacing the existing seal. AESSEAL reinvests over 7%of its annual sales in R&D, and has done so for several decades. This has led to one of the most advanced ranges of sealing technology in the world. The company has long and established ex- pertise in supplying the oil and gas industry with leading edge sealing solutions and has several thousanddesigns installedas retrofits to legacy pumps. Theseupgrade solutions are cost effective, simple to fit, generally do not require modifi- cation to the pump and in many cases can be performed during the routine maintenance planning cycle. “Our CAPI range of API seals has been qualification tested to API 682, so customers can be confident that they are buying the very best,” concludes Chester. q

Features and benefits of AESSEAL’s CAPI-TXS™ API 682 dual mechanical seal Compact – CAPI-TXS™ can be fitted to most API 610 5 th , 6 th and 7 th edition pumps andnonAPI 610pumps – regard- less of the OEM. Increased reliability – Cartridge design uses API 682 qualified components. An integral bi-directional internal pump- ing ring circulates barrier/buffer fluid, reducing seal face temperatures and improving reliability. Stationary seal design – The seal is de- signed with stationary flexible elements (springs) for improved tolerance topump casing or gland plate distortion and misalignment due to pipe loads, thermal distortion, pressure distortion, etc. q

A diagram showing the evolution of the shorter API 682 dual seal chamber design from the API 610 5 th edition to the latest 8 th edition and above.

December 2019-January 2020 • MechChem Africa ¦ 9