Marine Grade Flange Washers for Coastal Applications
The coastal ecosystem can present unique challenges to bolting applications due to increased exposure to high humidity levels and chloride-bearing environmental factors. Additionally, floating, dock, and rig platforms can make fieldwork difficult due to water movement making installations, maintenance, and repairs dangerous to perform.
In offshore drilling applications, these factors require flange washers capable of reliable live loading to maintain bolt tension and prevent gasket leaks. Applications such as marine construction, material transportation, and ship and boat building also require marine grade washers that increase the elasticity of a bolting system and maintain bolt integrity while withstanding corrosive operating conditions.
Coastal Stainless Steel Flange Washers
Marine environments are incredibly harsh due to high concentrations of salt in the water and air. Constant exposure to these environmental conditions accelerates corrosion, which impacts the performance of your bolted valve and piping components.Solon's stainless-steel flange washers are Belleville springs engineered for use in flange applications and carry higher loads than standard Belleville washers. They produce deflection at high loads in tight spaces and will not fatigue under normal operating conditions. Our flange washers are designed for high-temperature and high-pressure applications and withstand the corrosive conditions of coastal environments.
Flange and Valve Live Loading
All valves leak to some extent, and most of these leaks result from insufficient bolt tension. In petrochemical applications such as offshore oil drilling or marine construction, these leaks result in toxic emissions or potential ruptures that place workers and the environment at risk.Valve live loading helps reduce the loss of packing stress that causes valve leaks in piping flange joint assemblies. This provides leak tightness that is critical to marine construction and offshore drilling. Marine grade flange washers also offer the structural integrity required for ship and boat building.
Stainless Steel Flange Washer Benefits
- Produces large loads in a small space
- Prevents bolt tension loss from differential thermal expansion, high-temperature bolt yield, packing, and gasket relaxation, and vibration.
- Creates a sound, bolted joint connection
- When used correctly, reduces the loss of preload by a factor 7 to 15 times
- Does not require retorquing after installation
Offshore Drilling and Other Coastal Environments
Solon understands your application and its operating environment and provides a washer specially designed to withstand those harsh conditions, reducing unexpected service issues related to stress-corrosion cracking and other failures.While a variety of materials can be used to satisfy the demands of bolted joints in coastal applications unique to the oil and gas industry, Solon Manufacturing Co. offers 17-7PH stainless steel washers in a variety of heat-treated conditions, including TH1050 (Solon's standard), RH950 and CH900. Reduce the risk of corrosion assisted cracking associated with bolted connections in relatively high humidity and salt-laden environments with Solon® Flange Washers.
Learn more about the use of our products in coastal & marine applications:
Case Study: Solon® Flange washers for LNG Applications
White Paper: Reduce Fugitive Emissions with Valve Live Loading
Product Selection Tool: Flange Leak Prevention Calculator
Product Selection Tool: Valve Leak Prevention Calculator