The drainage industry exists to empty out waste materials, to clear the spoils of life and the overflows that nature throws at our properties. The simplest piped drainage systems empty out bath waters and showers in small residences. At the other end of the spectrum, wide-diameter pipes are utilized on agricultural lands. Providing sealed joints between these pipes, top-of-the-line rubber gaskets ensure a leak-free discharge.

Compressible Rubber Gaskets Eliminate Drainage Leaks

The greywater flowing away from a bathtub isn’t particularly hazardous. The same can be said for the rainwater in a home’s guttering. All the same, leaky pipes cause structural damage. The water soaks into framing wood. Expensive property damage is the inevitable conclusion, then there are wall moulds to combat, too. A major point to consider at this juncture is that a chink in the pipe system has made its presence felt. If the pipes are undamaged and the installation technicians did their job right, then a substandard pipe seal is causing all of this expensive property damage. The lesson here is this: Although drainage pipe gaskets are and inexpensive, they provide an important service. If that seal is to be maintained, contractors must select rubber materials that compress evenly. Good all-rounder elastomers are flexible, compressible, thermally tough, and immune to outside attacks.

Describing the Finest Hallmarks of a Leakproof Elastomeric Seal

Back in the home, there are waste systems in the kitchen and laundry room, too. Acidic tomato skins and oils are chewed-up by the sink’s garbage disposal machine. Unfortunately, lesser elastomers deteriorate when attacked by vinegary fluids and cooking oils, so those seals had better be immune to such abrasive onslaughts. It’s the same in the laundry room, although this time it’s some chemically active detergent that’s causing trouble. If that’s the state of matters in an ordinary home, imagine how much worse things can get out on a farm. Agricultural waste pipes are being exposed to all sorts of nitrogen-rich compounds and fertilizers. If the rubber isn’t intelligently selected here, then leaks will cause damage to field crops, then the farm ends up going into receivership because it can’t deliver its quota of fresh veggies on time. Again, all of this trouble can be blamed on a rubber ring that fits in the palm of a child’s hand.

So, what’s the main takeaway here? Well, drainage pipe seals are deceptively important. If a desired discharge rate needs to be maintained, whether in a home or out in a field, installers should select flush-fitting rubber gaskets that won’t attenuate the system’s flow rate. Just as importantly, the elastomer, made of neoprene or silicone, must be designed to handle all fluid-bearing aggressors, plus the outside threats that exacerbate those attacks. Heat, fluid acidity, ozone, pressure, all of these drainage attenuating factors must be countered when installing role-specific drainage pipe seals.

Engineering rubbers have transformed the mining industry. The same can be said for the manufacturing sector and for construction sites. Staying with mining, custom made rubber products make mines more productive. Let’s back up that statement with a few facts. Steel hoppers and screening frames are tough, but they age when exposed to loads of coarse rock. Aggregate materials dent metal, but rubber parts absorb such shock loads.

Installing Custom-Made Mining Components

The mining equipment fitted in modern mineral excavation installations has evolved a great deal over the last three decades. For the most part, the gear used here, the conveyors, hoppers, screens and crushers, are engineered to comply with the tightest known engineering standards. If a certain aggregate load requires a custom-built frame, then a manufacturer provides the system module. The machinery oscillates, it vibrates, but the tightly fitted, precisely die-cut rubber products installed on the equipment stay anchored. The point is, that’s a lot of punishment for all of that alloy-reinforced equipment to take. Saving the day, tailor-formed rubber overlays create a shock-absorbing barrier between the impact load and the steel frames.

Benefitting From Made To Measure Engineering Rubbers

Let’s put it this way, the mining industry can be used as a good example of how metal parts aren’t always application-suitable, but that industry is far from alone. In the food sector, custom made rubber linings prevent fruit from being bruised after they roll off a conveyor line. The material is exposed to fruit acids and moisture, but its specially treated polymer base resists such material weakening influences. If an unsuitable rubber were to be employed here, well, the flexible material would age and quickly wear out. Likewise, a sealing rubber, a material that’s meant to compress then resume its shape when the sealing pressure is removed, would end up as a cracked and broken down mess if the elastomeric medium was poorly sourced.

Temperatures, chemical reactance, pressures, all of these harsh environmental and process-specific effectors can damage a rubber sheet if the material hasn’t been intelligently selected. Finally, to really maximize the output of a top-of-the-line rubber fabrication company, that company can’t simply use an off-the-shelf approach. With industrial and commercial clients in search of products that precisely slot into a given application, special die-cutting machines and cutters are required to create these made-to-fit solutions. If a customer reports an error, such as an overly loose-fitting, then the fabrication shop has to be capable of implementing a reworking system, one that recuts a chosen elastomer until it exactly suits a demanding application area.

Without beating around the proverbial bush, FRAS (Fire Resistant and Anti-Static) products in underground mines are those that minimize dangerous site ignitability hazards. The products described here only serve to prove one hard fact: There can be no gambling, no wagering with what are essentially high-risk work conditions here, not when lives and limbs are at stake. FRAS products, therefore, exist to prevent flame propagation events, to basically fireproof mines and to minimize the electrical build-ups down there that could cause an explosion.

Reviewing FRAS Issues in Underground Mines

Let’s use a coal mine to highlight the hazards found down here, although any mining installation could trigger a fire threat. If anthracite and bitumen are exposed in a mine chamber, it’ll likely produce a fine black mist. Of some concern, this is a solid fuel. It’s not as combustible as some gaseous fuels, but it will ignite if the conditions are right. Besides, coal mines can also release pockets of methane. In fact, any mining facility can unlock a chamber full of methane. Bad enough, this “Firedamp,” this potentially explosive mixture is floating around, but it’s also contained, trapped in an underground mine’s many subterranean chambers, where workers are going about their business. By adding static to the already highly volatile mix, the whole installation begins to resemble a closed-in tinder box.

Anti-Static and Anti-Flame Propagation Solutions

FRAS products are essentially made from large rubber sheets, although they’re also sometimes die-cut into smaller, thinner strips as well. The rubber acts as a sheath for exposed metal surfaces, pipes, equipment frames, and all manner of underground mine apparatus. The goal is to insulate and isolate conductive parts, to prevent static build-up and to fireproof flammable materials. If a situation occurs where a spark could be generated, fire-retarding FRAS rubber minimizes the accumulation of static electricity. Moving onto FRAS-rated gear, composite pulley linings and conveyor skirts can be used to illustrate another example of a FRAS safe equipment build. This time, instead of layers of rubber sheeting blanketing a pipe or vent duct, special rubber composites are fabricated as integral equipment components.

There are also FRAS rated screening decks and belt scrapers. Steel-reinforced crushers and vibratory pans use FRAS materials as well. Of some benefit here, the anti-static materials also function fairly well as impact dampening surfaces, so they protect underlying steel surfaces from high-velocity aggregate loads. Up higher, above the equipment lines, anti-static and flame resistant plastic meshes function as mine ceiling guards. They line ceilings and walls. Indeed, high-functioning FRAS mechanisms line every conceivable underground mine assembly, including the ventilation ducts that work tirelessly to extract that ignitable coal dust.

A heavy emphasis is placed on worker safety when designing underground mines. Huge efforts are made to provide a risk-free environment down there among the tunnels and vaulted subterranean chambers. That’s why there are steel-laced supports in every passageway to stabilize the walls and ceilings. Following this line of safety-centric reasoning, a vent band’s job is to secure a mine’s ventilation tubes.

Protecting Environmental Lifelines

Above ground, walking around in the fresh air, we all take oxygen for granted. The air is maybe fresh, or it’s maybe a little stuffy, but it’s readily available. Divers can’t say the same. Swimming down into deep waters, they cautiously pay attention to their back-strapped oxygen tanks so that they can surface while they’ve still got plenty of breathable air. It’s much the same situation down inside an underground mine. There might be gas trapped in a chamber, clouds of dust choking a passageway, or simply a lack of breathable air throughout a deep subterranean level. Therefore, the ventilation tubing running through a mine is generally perceived as a life-giving umbilical line. The pipes provide clean, breathable air to miners. What, however, happens if the tubing develops a leak in a pipe joint?

Preventing Vent Leaks and Ignition Hazards

From one perspective, the tubing stays sealed so that oxygen pressure stays high and miners have access to a fully working ventilation system. Then there’s the other point of view to consider. Those gasses and powdered materials, the ones collecting and unable to disperse in a mine chamber, could very well ignite if they’re mixed with oxygen. For example methane gas is sometimes exposed and released from ground pockets, then there’s bituminous coal dust, which is also ignitable. To prevent joint leaks from feeding these ignitable atmospheric elements with fire-feeding oxygen, mining engineers wrap ventilation tubes in a special sealing rubber. This is Vent Band rubber, a Fire Retardant and Anti-Static medium (FRAS) that seals the tubing and, therefore, maintains a safe, pressure-verified vent line.

Spark hazards are significantly reduced when oxygen lines are wrapped in Vent Band rubber. The material features a static reduction attribute, so the possibility of a spark discharge is greatly minimized. The tubing seal also provides a high measure of flame retardation. Even if a conflagration does develop, it won’t receive any flame feeding oxygen from the tubing, not with the rubber resisting the heat. One more time, then, this material wraps snugly around oxygen line joints to create an impermeable oxygen barrier. Venting systems remain properly pressurized when the rubber wrapping eliminates potential leaks. Just as importantly, the flame and static immune material actually reduces sparks and suppresses mine ignitability conditions.