The following are case histories and applications highlights of the performance advantage provided by PolyMod® and UltraMod® seals.  Check back regularly as highlights will be changed and added.  And if you have an experience you would like share where PolyMod® or UltraMod® solved your problem, please let us know and we will be happy to add it!

Pneumatic cylinder
Problem: Pneumatic cylinders in high speed food packing machinery were being returned for warranty problems. Cylinders warranted for 50,000 cycles were often being returned for seal replacement after less than 12,000 cycles.  Production personnel had to be taken off the assembly line to replace seals.  Cylinders were also being rejected due to high initial breakout pressures.

Solution: PolyMod® nitrile (NBR PM) O-Rings, Q-Rings, and PolyTee™ seals provided the lowest breakout pressures, even lower than than equivalent internally lubed seals.  PolyMod seals by decreasing wear increased the cycle life and eliminated costly warranty repairs.

Spool seals
Problem: Internally lubed spool seals in an automotive plant were experiencing premature wear problems because the internal lubricant was leaching out in the presence of the air line lubricant.

Solution: PolyMod® FKM Q-Rings and O-Rings were qualified to 8 million cycles with consistently lower shift pressures.  No adverse air line lubricant / elastomer problems were observed.

Medical subcutaneous injection gun
Problem: A customer introducing a new generation medical injection gun required 10 injections per minute with no sticking of the device.  The seals had to be capable of being repeatedly sterilized in steam or chemical sterilization at 120°C.  Seal life had to be at least 10,000 injections.

Solution: PolyMod® FKM O-Rings were qualified for all the seals in the injection gun.  The PolyMod FKM provided over 10,000 continuous injections with no hangups or sticking eliminating the previous need for grease and prolonging seal life in the process.

Delrin couplings
Problem: Delrin couplings were performing inconsistently. They had to be used without a lubricant and the pull forces in this situation varied from 3.5 to 12 pounds.

Solution: PolyMod® O-Rings were used and pull forces ranged from 3 to 6 pounds with very consistent performance.

Explosion proof air valves
Problem: Explosion proof air valves designed for outdoor cold temperature usage could not meet their life cycle requirements.  The rounded lip U-Cup seals molded from a low temperature NBR material could not meet the 29 million life cycle requirement.  On disassembly the seals were badly worn and the grease that was originally present during assembly had disappeared.

Solution: PolyMod® NBR U-cups performed 29 million short stroke cycles at a rate of 150 cycles per minute and maintained sealability on a 6061 aluminum hard coat anodized shaft.  The valves exhibited bubble tight shut off of 20 psi at -65°F.  The PolyMod seals showed no visible signs of wear and the installation grease was still present indicating no significant temperature excursions due to friction had occurred.

Wheel bearing radial lip seals
Problem: A manufacturer of automotive wheel bearing assemblies was using ethylene acrylic seals that had high torque.  The manufacturer wanted to reduce energy consumption by reducing torque.

Solution: PolyMod® ethylene acrylic wheel bearing seals not only reduced torque significantly, and hence energy consumption, but also increased seal life.

Automotive pneumatic couplings
Problem: A manufacturer of a special coupling assembly used in a high temperature gasoline application was having assembly problems due to the high friction of the Square Rings being used.

Solution: PolyMod® Square Rings were substituted.  These had the lowest friction of all the seals that were tested and proved to be fully compatible in the application with no excessive swelling.