Uncontrolled Decompression - Pressure Vessel Seals and Testing

Pressure Vessel Seals and Testing

Seals in high-pressure vessels are also susceptible to explosive decompression; the O-rings or rubber gaskets used to seal pressurised pipelines tend to become saturated with high-pressure gases. If the pressure inside the vessel is suddenly released, then the gases within the rubber gasket may expand violently, causing blistering or explosion of the material. For this reason, it is common for military and industrial equipment to be subjected to an explosive decompression test before it is certified as safe for use.

Read more about this topic:  Uncontrolled Decompression

Famous quotes containing the words pressure, vessel, seals and/or testing:

    The area [of toilet training] is one where a child really does possess the power to defy. Strong pressure leads to a powerful struggle. The issue then is not toilet training but who holds the reins—mother or child? And the child has most of the ammunition!
    Dorothy Corkville Briggs (20th century)

    Every day brings a ship,
    Every ship brings a word;
    Well for those who have no fear,
    Looking seaward well assured
    That the word the vessel brings
    Is the word they wish to hear.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Social and scientific progress are assured, sir, once our great system of postpossession payments is in operation, not the installment plan, no sir, but a system of small postpossession payments that clinch the investment. No possible rational human wish unfulfilled. A man with a salary of fifty dollars a week can start payments on a Rolls-Royce, the Waldorf-Astoria, or a troupe of trained seals if he so desires.
    John Dos Passos (1896–1970)

    Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.
    Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)