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Video Transcript
Today we’re going to talk about PTFE rotary seals.
PTFE is more commonly known in the industry as Teflon, but today we’re going to refer to it as PTFE because Teflon is the DuPont trade name. Reasons we would choose to use PTFE over your normal rubber elastomer style seal would be that we’ve exceeded the capabilities. Whether it be speed, pressure, temperature, and maybe the chemicals that it meets. PTFE is a very low friction material – so it’s able to operate at very high speeds.
It’s got a very broad temperature range. Virgin PTFE can handle ranges from -425 Fahrenheit up to 450 Fahrenheit and we can even shift that range a little higher depending on the fillers that we add to it. So, it can handle a wide range of temperatures and basically any fluid or chemical that you throw at it.
High Speed, Low Pressure Profile
For this one, we’ve got very lightly loaded and very flexible lips that are machined. They’re very lightly engaged, so we need a shaft that runs very true – no runout because PTFE is not a very resilient material. It needs some form of energizer in order to make sure that it remains in contact with the shaft.
So with this profile here, we’re going to be limited to about 50 psi, but we can run up to about 5,000 surface feet per minute for speeds. We have an excluder and then the main lip to retain the fluid.