To meet a huge demand for both new and repair of Dry Gas Compressor Seals, AESSEAL® is pleased to announce a further £500,000 investment in their testing facility. In addition to doubling the current capacity, this investment increases the diameter of Dry Gas Compressor Seals that AESSEAL® can manufacture, refurbish and dynamically test up to 380mm (14.96”) shaft diameter.
As well as additional test equipment, polishing and lapping machines that can lap seal faces up to 500mm (19.685”) in diameter, the company has also installed lifting equipment to increase the lifting capacity to 2500kg (2.76 tonnes).
The company have previously announced a multi-million pound investment in large capacity 9-axis, state of the art machining centres which are an essential requirement for both new manufacture and repair of third party Dry Gas Compressor Seals.
Engineering Director, Stephen Shaw stated:
We now believe we can meet the requirements of 98% of the market for dry gas seal testing. This investment increases our capability to manufacture, test and refurbish dry gas seals from almost any compressor.
AESSEAL® believe that Dry Gas Compressor Seals represent the top of the mechanical sealing technology ladder and have invested heavily in this technology in the last 15 years. New AESSEAL® offerings include conventional Compressor Seal technology and unique patented combined Hydrostatic and Hydrodynamic lift Dry Gas Compressor Seals.
With the latest investment AESSEAL® believe that their Dry Gas Compressor Seal refurbishment and test facilities are now world leading in terms of ease of testing, instrumentation and computerised operation and control. Amongst other innovations customers are able to witness the test of their Dry Gas Compressor Seal by remote video link which can be viewed on laptops or smart phones as an alternative to witnessing the actual test at the AESSEAL® Global Technology Centre in Rotherham, UK.
A senior reliability engineer from a user of the company’s products and services in this field recently commented: “We absolutely will use AESSEAL® for both retrofits and refurbishments of other manufacturer’s seals. In service performance has been excellent with lower than anticipated gas flow/leakage rates. The seals have been through over a dozen start/stop cycles with no changes in performance.” This statement was made a year after a successful conversion from a wet to an AESSEAL® Dry Gas Compressor Seal.
AESSEAL® report that due to the decline in the oil price, all other major companies in the mechanical seal field, apart from AESSEAL® have seen declining revenues since the beginning of 2016, along with a substantial reduction in profitability and heavy job losses. AESSEAL® believe that their business model is unique in the industry as their focus is on the end user and reliability improvements. As in all other “recessions” in the last 30 years, AESSEAL® report a considerable growth in demand and market share. The company reports that their maintenance friendly, reliability focused business model appears to be highly valued by existing customers and is also in much greater demand from potential new customers, in times where there is less money available to spend and that is reflected in the 16% sales growth YTD 2017.
