GRAPHALLOY Bushings and Bearings

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Thursday, September 25, 2014

A Proven Solution for the Most Challenging Plant Maintenance

GRAPHALLOY® 453 Family of Self-Lubricating Bushings are for severe industrial applications where temperatures reach 750̊F (400̊C) or higher. GRAPHALLOY, a graphite/metal alloy, bushings are designed to operate without lubrication.

The 453 Bushings have proven to be successful in a variety of high temperature applications including bakery ovens, heat treat ovens, furnaces, conveyors, overhead paint lines, glass lehrs, louvers, dampers, valves as well as other environments where oil and grease cannot be used.

Applications can experience improved performance through the use of GRAPHALLOY materials. Among their many advantages, GRAPHALLOY bushings operate at longer intervals without the need for maintenance, which reduces costly downtime. They are an excellent choice for applications where service and maintenance tasks are cumbersome or difficult to perform.

Additional benefits of GRAPHALLOY include a low coefficient of friction and dimensional stability. The 453 Bushings, like all GRAPHALLOY products, do not soften at high temperatures or extrude under load. Installations of these bushings have operated for more than 10 years without maintenance. GRAPHALLOY 453 Bushings are a proven solution for the most challenging plant maintenance and new equipment design.

Learn more about GRAPHALLOY by clicking here.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Solution For Off-Shore Platform Firewater Pumps

GRAPHALLOY® nickel-grade bearings have been successfully used in offshore firewater pumps for many years. The non-galling, self-lubricating features of GRAPHALLOY allow pumps to continue working even when they encounter a run dry situation.

This particular firewater pump is installed on a Conoco offshore gas platform in the southern North Sea. The platform is an integral part of the LOGGS pipeline system that delivers gas through a 36" pipeline to a processing terminal on the east coast of England. This platform and pipeline system have been in operation since 1988.

The OEM-specified bushings were simple cut-to-size PTFE/Glass Tape Bearings like those normally found in hydraulic cylinders. High vibration and noise were identified as operational issues. In addition, the compounded PTFE material had little or no dry running capability. This was considered a health and safety issue because the pump was for emergency firefighting service and had to start when needed.

The repair facility had successfully performed several GRAPHALLOY upgrades to firewater pumps for other customers and thus proposed a similar upgrade to Conoco. This upgrade would provide the dry running capability that these pumps lacked.

The engineers at Graphite Metallizing worked closely with the repair facility’s engineering team to define pump modifications required and specify nickel-grade, GM 111.3, GRAPHALLOY bushings.

The upgrade to GRAPHALLOY GM 111.3 bushings was successfully completed. Conoco alsocompleted all required approval tests on the pump successfully. Conoco personnel observed and recorded that the use of GRAPHALLOY significantly reduced noise and vibration levels.

Conoco is now assured that they have an emergency firewater pumping system that has rundry capability and is Health and Safety Executive (HSE) certified

To learn more about GRAPHALLOY, click here.