Why Use LINK-SEAL®?

LINK-SEAL® is a modular elastomer sealing system that creates a permanent, hydrostatic seal for almost any cylindrical object as it traverses a barrier. The modular LINK-SEAL ® seals are the primary technique for sealing tubes of any size continuously through walls and ceilings. Indeed, any cylinder-shaped item can be secured against water, soil or backfill material rapidly, readily and permanently.

LINK-SEAL® FEATURE AND BENEFITS

• Install in up to 75% less time compared to lead-oakum joints, hand-fitted flashings, mastics, or casing boots.
• Rated at 20 psig (40ft of head), which exceeds the performance requirements of most applications.
• Designed for use as a permanent seal. Seal elements are specially compounded to resist aging and attack from ozone, sunlight, water, and a wide range of chemicals.
• Standard fasteners have a two-part zinc dichromate and proprietary corrosion inhibiting coating. Corrosion resistant 316 stainless steel available for maximum corrosion protection.
• NSF 61 and Factory Mutual Fire Approved materials available. Also carry a wide variety of approvals from various Federal agencies, associations, code groups, laboratories, and organizations.
• Manufactured in an ISO 9001certified facility.
• 16 sizes, color-coded EPDM, Nitrile, and Silicone elastomers may be used with various hardware options to match performance characteristics with service conditions.

LINK-SEAL® SPECIFICATIONS

• Pressure resistant to 20psig (40 ft of head)
• Standard  — EPDM – rubber (black)
• Oil Resistant — Nitrile rubber (green)
• Temperature resistant — Silicone rubber (gray)
• Low Durometer for fragile pipe — EPDM rubber (blue) Shore 40 ± 5
• Hardware Options - S316 Stainless Steel and Zinc Dichromate Coated Steel (1470 hr salt spray tested) hardware

LINK-SEAL® APPLICATIONS

Mechanical Contractors - Interior Piping Systems, Manhole Pipe Entry Seals, Waste Treatment Plants, Cased Road Crossings, Thermal Storage Systems, Fire Protection Wall Penetrations, Cased Railroad Crossings, Electrical Isolation of Pipes, Precast Concrete Vault Seals, Insulated Pipe Seals, Dual Containment Seals, Marine Applications, Noise Dampening, Flexible Sign & Pole Supports, Electrical Isolation of Pipe Supports, Mining, Pulp & Paper, Decorative Fountains, Pool Contractors, Electrical Contractors, Waste & Water Treatment, Telecommunications, Valve Pits, Refrigeration Buildings, Guard Post Assemblies, Power Generation Dams, Offshore Oil Rigs, High Pressure Tank Guards, Underground Steel Tanks, Precast Concrete Manufacturers, Perimeter Berm Installations Around Tank Farms, Flow Restrictions in Sewer Maintenance, Fluid Overflow Devices, Noise and Sway Dampener, Through Deck Fire Breaks, Bridge Construction, Septic Tank Installations, Coal Preparation Plants, Tunneling Operations.

For more information on LINK-SEAL® modular wall seals, contact Piping Specialties, Inc. Call them at 800-223-1468 or visit their web site at https://psi-team.com.

A-T Controls / TRIAC Valves and Actuators from Piping Specialties, Inc.

A-T Controls, Inc. designs, develops and manufactures valves, actuators and valve control products. Founded in 1994, A-T Controls currently operates out of the primary facility in Cincinnati, Ohio and another in Stafford, Texas with several sales offices throughout North America. Their products are used in virtually every industry including: Oil & Gas, Refining, Petrochemical, Chemical Processing, Pulp & Paper, Mining, Transportation, Food and Beverage, Pharmaceuticals, Marine, HVAC, and Power.

AT CONTROLS / TRIAC PRODUCTS:

• Ball Valves
• Butterfly Valves
• Rack & Pinion Pneumatic Actuators
• Electric Actuators
• Heavy Duty / Scotch Yoke Actuators
• Floor Mounted Damper Drives
• Gear Operators
•  Limit Switches

For more information, contact Piping Specialties, Inc.
https://psi-team.com
800-223-1468

Plugged Chute Detection for Granular Materials

Detecting plugs in granular material conveying chutes is difficult due to the heavy, abrasive materials and dusty, coating nature of the environment. Many technologies used to detect material movement in chutes have considerable downside. For instance, regulatory requirements and source disposal problems make nuclear gauges an unappealing choice, insertion type sensors are quickly damaged by falling material, microwave sensors require two mounting windows to operate, and vibrating chute walls can damage electrical components.

A better alternative is the Drexelbrook Intellipoint RF Admittance Plugged Chute Detector. Its design allows for the reliable detection of a plugged chute, reducing costly downtime and material spill over.

The Drexelbrook plugged chute detector, also known as a blocked chute switch, reliably detects the presence or absence of bulk solids material flowing through chutes in an economical way without sacrificing flow speed. If process material stops flowing due to a plugged condition, the flush mounted capacitance sensing element will alarm, allowing further action to occur (alerting an operator, shutting down a conveyor belt, etc.). The Cote shield circuitry ignores even heavy coatings, and the flush mounted sensing element does not interfere with material flow. There are no moving parts to wear or jam, and thus, it requires virtually no maintenance. In fact, the Intellipoint Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) is calculated to more than 110 years!

There are no regulatory requirements with the adoption of the Intellipoint, and system electronics can be mounted remotely to eliminate vibration concerns. Due to the rugged sensor design this point level switch is ideal for coal, wood chips, ores and powders. This point level switch automatically recognizes and ignores coatings to prevent false alarms and, as it is flush mounted through a chute wall, nothing protrudes into the chute to interfere with or obstruct material flow.

Choosing the Intellipoint provides reliable detection of plugged chutes that will keep your plant running smoothly and virtually eliminates spills occurring due to plugged conditions.

Key Features

• Curved and flat sensors are available
• DPDT relay dry contacts at 5A, 120VAC
• Less maintenance than other technologies; no moving parts to hang up or wear out
• Uses Drexelbrook PML series electronics
• Supply voltage: 19-250 VAC, 18-200 VDC, Auto-detecting without jumpers

For more information, contact Piping Specialties, Inc. by calling 800-223-1468 or by visiting https://psi-team.com.

Happy Independence Day from Piping Specialties / PSI Controls

US Power Grids, Oil and Gas Industries, and Risk of Hacking

A report released in June, from the security firm Dragos, describes a worrisome development by a hacker group named, “Xenotime” and at least two dangerous oil and gas intrusions and ongoing reconnaissance on United States power grids.

Multiple ICS (Industrial Control Sectors) sectors now face the XENOTIME threat; this means individual verticals – such as oil and gas, manufacturing, or electric – cannot ignore threats to other ICS entities because they are not specifically targeted.

The Dragos researchers have termed this threat proliferation as the world’s most dangerous cyberthreat since an event in 2017 where Xenotime had caused a serious operational outage at a crucial site in the Middle East. 

The fact that concerns cybersecurity experts the most is that this hacking attack was a malware that chose to target the facility safety processes (SIS – safety instrumentation system).

For example, when temperatures in a reactor increase to an unsafe level, an SIS will automatically start a cooling process or immediately close a valve to prevent a safety accident. The SIS safety stems are both hardware and software that combine to protect facilities from life threatening accidents.

At this point, no one is sure who is behind Xenotime. Russia has been connected to one of the critical infrastructure attacks in the Ukraine.  That attack was viewed to be the first hacker related power grid outage.

This is a “Cause for Concern” post that was published by Dragos on June 14, 2019. 

“While none of the electric utility targeting events has resulted in a known, successful intrusion into victim organizations to date, the persistent attempts, and expansion in scope is cause for definite concern. XENOTIME has successfully compromised several oil and gas environments which demonstrates its ability to do so in other verticals. Specifically, XENOTIME remains one of only four threats (along with ELECTRUM, Sandworm, and the entities responsible for Stuxnet) to execute a deliberate disruptive or destructive attack.

XENOTIME is the only known entity to specifically target safety instrumented systems (SIS) for disruptive or destructive purposes. Electric utility environments are significantly different from oil and gas operations in several aspects, but electric operations still have safety and protection equipment that could be targeted with similar tradecraft. XENOTIME expressing consistent, direct interest in electric utility operations is a cause for deep concern given this adversary’s willingness to compromise process safety – and thus integrity – to fulfill its mission.

XENOTIME’s expansion to another industry vertical is emblematic of an increasingly hostile industrial threat landscape. Most observed XENOTIME activity focuses on initial information gathering and access operations necessary for follow-on ICS intrusion operations. As seen in long-running state-sponsored intrusions into US, UK, and other electric infrastructure, entities are increasingly interested in the fundamentals of ICS operations and displaying all the hallmarks associated with information and access acquisition necessary to conduct future attacks. While Dragos sees no evidence at this time indicating that XENOTIME (or any other activity group, such as ELECTRUM or ALLANITE) is capable of executing a prolonged disruptive or destructive event on electric utility operations, observed activity strongly signals adversary interest in meeting the prerequisites for doing so.”

Mounting and Adjusting a Rack & Pinion Actuator

A-T Controls is a global leader in the design, manufacturing and sale of manual & automated process valves for all types of industries.

This video details the steps required to mount and adjust a TRIAC rack and pinion actuator to an AT Controls ball valve.

Piping Specialties sells, services, and automates A-T Controls valves and TRIAC actuators in New England.

For more information, contact Piping Specialties by calling 800-223-1468 or visiting https://psi-team.com.

Guide to Industrial Refractometer Applications

Industrial refractometer
(K-Patents)

As a general rule, refractometers measure the concentration of any dissolved material in a liquid. A typical measured medium is a binary solution, but it can also be a mixture of more than two components. In multi-component solutions this is a checksum; if one of the components is wrong, the overall refractive index value changes.

The potential applications in different industries are countless. Although the manufacturing process, environment and processing medium vary from industry to industry, all basic unit operations and control strategies are roughly the same despite of the end product.

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DOWNLOAD THE FULL GUIDE HERE

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Applications discussed in the application guide include:

• Crystallizers
• Reactors
• Evaporation
• Ultrafiltration
• Reverse Osmosis
• Spray Dryers
• Dissolving Tanks
• Solid / Liquid Extraction
• Cooking Processes
• Ion Exchangers
• Absorbers and Wet Scrubbers
• Distillation
• Interface Detection

For more information about the application of industrial refractometers in manufacturing processes, contact Piping Specialties / PSI Controls by calling 800-223-1468 or by visiting their web site at https://psi-team.com.