Flanges
Special Piping Materials can source and supply a range of pipe flanges that are made from premium quality materials including Duplex, Super Duplex and 6% Moly. All our flanges have been tested to the very highest of standards. A flange is an external or internal ridge between two pipes that provides a method of connecting pipes, valves, pumps and other equipment to form an overall piping system. In many applications, engineers need to find a way to close off a chamber or cylinder in a very secure fashion, usually because the substance inside must differ from the substance outside in composition or pressure. They do this by fastening two pieces of metal or other material together with a circle of bolts on a lip. This “lip” is a flange. Flanges can also provide easy access for cleaning, inspection or modification and pipes with flanges can be assembled and disassembled easily. Flanges tend to be either welded or screwed into place.
Pipe flanges are manufactured in a variety of different materials. The material of a flange is usually set by the choice of the pipe meaning that the flange matches the material of the pipe, whether that is Duplex, Super Duplex, Stainless Steel, Nickel Alloy or 6% Moly.
Here at Special Piping Materials, we carry many different flanges in stock in our warehouses around the world, these include:
- Weld Necks
- Slip-on
- Blinds
- Lap Joint
At Special Piping Materials, alongside finished flanges, we also carry a stock of Semi-Finished flanges in all our warehouses around the world – Perth, Singapore, Dubai, Rio De Janeiro, Houston, Manchester and Aberdeen.
Semi-Finished Flanges are unfinished stainless-steel flanges that have already undergone some machining processes but are not the complete article yet. These flanges mean that we can quickly manufacture the exact type of flanges that our customers require as they can be machined to very precise specifications.
Here at Special Piping Materials we supply many different types of flanges, some of which we have detailed below. Each of the below flanges can be either Ring-Type Joint Flanges or Raised Face Flanges:
Ring-Type Joint Flanges are often thought to be one of the most efficient flanges in pipeline design. Instead of using a gasket between connecting flanges, Ring-Type Joint Flanges have grooves cut into their faces with steel ring gaskets. When the bolts connecting the flanges are tightened, the gasket is compressed between the flanges into the grooves. This, in turn, creates a an extremely tight and leak-proof, metal-to-metal seal.
The grooves and gasket must stay aligned throughout the operating cycle in order for the seal to remain intact. This is especially important if you are flanging together different metals, for example stainless steel and carbon steel.
A benefit of using a Ring-Type Joint Flange is that the groove within the flange ensures the ring centres itself when the bolts are tightened. This also means it is self-actuating – so the sealing pressure increases as the process pressure increases.
These days, Ring-Type Joint Flanges are often used in oil fields on drilling and completion equipment but can also be found on valves and pipework assemblies, along with high-integrity pressure vessel joints.
As the alternate product to Right-Type Joint Flanges, Raised Face Flanges are commonly used in process plant applications and are easy to identify; As the name suggests, the gasket surface is raised above the bolting circle face. This design of face type means that a Raised Face Flange can be used with a wide combination of gasket designs such as metallic composites and flat ring sheet types.
A Raised Face Flange has a very specific purpose; To concentrate more pressure on a smaller gasket area and therefore increase the joint’s ability to contain the pressure.
It is a very versatile flange and can be used in almost all applications in high and low pressures and temperatures meaning that Special Piping Materials regularly supplies this type of flange to our customers.