Nearly every complex industrial machine in the world owes its functionality to O-rings. The workhorses of modern industrial equipment, O-rings can make or break the performance of everything from earth movers to oil pistons to assembly lines.
How can better O-rings prevent machine downtime within industrial and manufacturing settings? In several ways, in fact.
Better O-rings…keep machinery from breaking.
The most obvious way in which O-rings are responsible for preventing downtime is in keeping their machinery moving. O-rings are designed to help machinery function under a wide range of temperatures, in various pressure settings, and with many different tolerances. When O-rings fail, it’s not unusual for an entire machine to stop functioning. That’s because the nature of O-rings is to protect and seal one component of a machine against another; when those seals are compromised, machinery can’t safely (or effectively) operate. Better O-rings last longer and fail less often which means machinery doesn’t have to be shut down.
Better O-rings…have higher tolerances.
Higher tolerances – against heat, against pressure, against friction – generally mean machines can withstand more for longer. O-rings that are designed to withstand more severe environments generally need to be replaced less often than lesser O-rings, particularly when the machinery is still running against standard specifications. O-rings with higher tolerances might also be less likely to fail all at once, giving machine engineers time to recognize the impending need for replacement and install a new seal before the machine is subject to downtime.
Better O-rings…mean less maintenance.
O-rings’ jobs are to protect machinery from itself. When they’re not working properly, processes become inefficient and process byproducts such as oil, steam, and even chemicals can slowly corrode any adjacent machinery and/or parts. When O-rings aren’t sealing correctly, machinery degrades. The better an O-ring is initially, the more protection it offers machinery against the constant need for maintenance, particularly the kind of maintenance that requires the entire machine be shut down. Scheduled maintenance is a good and necessary part of any machining process; unscheduled maintenance is not.
Wyatt Seal is a distributor, supplier, and manufacturer of better O-rings for machinery. Our specialists have decades of experience matching the right sealing product with a machine’s unique requirements. Sometimes that entails regular shipments of our popular in-stock O-ring solutions. Sometimes it means prototyping and producing an entirely new O-ring product specifically for that machine.
Do you have questions about how our O-rings could improve your process? Reach out today to speak with one of our consultants about what your current O-rings are missing, and how better O-rings can impact your bottom line. We’re happy to help.