Frequently Asked Questions
Are seals from Jetseal reusable? 
Although some customers have been known to recycle our seals, for the sake of safety and performance precision, we don’t recommend it.

What determines typical leakage rates? 
Many factors affect leakage rates, including seal profile, surface finish, plating, and load.

How can I calculate bolt load? 
Bolt loads depend on seal line load, internal pressure, moments about joint, additional axial loads, and joint deflection. Use the formula T=.2df where T = torque in pounds, d = normal bolt diameter in inches and f = axial bolt load in pounds.

What are Jetseal’s handling recommendations? 
Keep all seals in their individual packaging, avoiding direct contact with other seals and surfaces, until installation.

Wear cloth gloves when handling plated seals (especially silver) to avoid transferring body oils to the seal line.

Install the seals into the flanged joint only in a clean, pristine environment. Don’t allow the seals to come into direct contact with any surface other than the mating surfaces.

And remember, taking direct measurements can damage the plating surface. Finally, we recommend avoiding tarnish, even though it’s usually cosmetic and will not affect seal performance.

What plating does Jetseal recommend? 
Since surface roughness on the mating surfaces directly affects the sealing ability of resilient metal seals, we recommend a surface roughness no greater than 32 m inches for gas sealing applications.

In addition, mating surfaces shouldn’t have flatness tolerances that exceed 4 percent of the seal free height.

At a minimum, mating surfaces should measure 35 HRC in hardness, in order to prevent the seal from brinelling the surface when high sealing loads are applied. This precaution will help protect against future leakage paths.

How should seals be compressed? 
To insure symmetric sealing, uniformly compress Jetseal seals in the flange cavity to an application-specific preload value.

Tighten the flange bolts sequentially in a star or similar pattern, attempting to evenly compress the seal in steps no larger than 20 percent of the difference between free height and working height. If you can’t compress the seal in such a manner using the flange bolts, try to achieve even compression with another method.

Make certain the flange bolts provide seal preload as specified for the application. The total flange bolt load should include the preload value, as well as operating load and a safety factor.