Speakers:
- John Morton, Product Line Director
- Raul Escontrias, North America Pipeline Account Manager
- Jim Wasser, Director, Design Engineering
- Brian Kalfrin, Regional Engineering Manager
- Kevin Parker, Moderator, CFE Media & Technology
Crude-oil pipeline pumps traditionally suffer from seal leakage due to the fretting or wearing of the dynamic O-ring, rather than wear to the dynamic seal faces. Surveys and root-cause analyses performed on equipment demonstrate that solids and debris contained in the pumped product cause secondary seal damage, and ultimately, seal failure.
Moreover, pumping stations that serve transmission and gathering pipelines are often remote and unmanned. Use of a reliable secondary seal increases both pump and pipeline reliability.
A more robust, non-dynamic secondary seal has been developed to eliminate these kinds of damages and failures. It cannot hang up, nor wear the shaft or secondary sleeve. In addition, reduced sleeve fretting maintains seal integrity, delivering improved spill prevention, and is valuable to operators in terms both of assets protected as well as critical asset expansion.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the common causes of mechanical seal (pump) failure in crude oil pipelines
- Quantify the immediate and longer term costs and implication of seal failure
- Understand the technical solution to overcome most common pipeline seal failures and extend MTBR
- Discover the relative simplicity of seal retrofit and estimated payback period.