Revisiting Gasket Selection: A Flowchart Approach — Updates for the 25th Anniversary

25 years ago, Ron Winter presented the seminal paper “Gasket Selection: A Flowchart Approach” to the ASME Pressure Vessel Piping (PVP) community at the June 1990 PVP conference in Nashville, Tennessee [1]. Much has changed since then. New gasket materials have been introduced, and existing materials have been combined in new forms. High temperature vermiculite-based gaskets have come on the market. Further testing has demonstrated failure mechanisms specific to certain gasket materials; new assembly methods have been explored to reduce the effects of bolt elastic interaction and “cross talk”. Grooved profile gaskets, also known as “kammprofiles”, are now listed in ASME B16.20 [2] and widely (and economically) available in the United States. Spiral wound gaskets are obtainable world-wide. A new generation of engineers is responsible for sealing performance in today’s industrial and power plants. Environmental and emissions regulations have evolved. European codes now mandate design methods using gasket leakage while the US and other countries consider it. Much has stayed the same since 1990. New engineers need to learn what is required to seal a bolted flanged joint reliably — this is not typically explored in universities. Many of the steps to select and implement a good gasket seal are the same in 2015 as they were in 1990. This paper reviews and expands the gasket selection process to enable today’s engineers to make informed choices for reliable bolted flanged joints with gasket sealing elements.Copyright © 2015 by ASME