Product developed to address customers’ pain points across the energy and process industries
John Crane, a global leader in rotating equipment solutions, and a business of Smiths Group, recently announced the launch of the Type 93AX Coaxial Separation Seal, a next generation dry gas sealing solution engineered to help customers reduce emissions, improve equipment reliability, and lower operational costs.
The Type 93AX builds on John Crane’s legacy of industrial sealing expertise with a robust, fail-safe design that remains operational even in the event of multiple failure scenarios.
Designed based on direct customer feedback, our test data indicates the mechanical seal reduces nitrogen consumption by up to 80% in test data, compared to conventional radial separation seals, offering significant efficiency and sustainability benefits.
Industry challenges
The Type 93AX is designed to mitigate both performance and financial risks by extending the reliability of the dry gas seal system and reducing demand on supporting infrastructure such as nitrogen (N2) generators and air compressors.
The seal supports three operating states and automatically adapts in failure situations to minimise disruption and contain gas or oil migration:
Scenario 1: Standard operation: Non-contacting operation provides positive oil ingress mitigation.
Scenario 2: Separation gas loss: Maintains non-contacting operation and oil control even without separation gas.
Scenario 3: Dry gas seal failure: Restricts process gas leakage during compressor shutdown (up to 35 bar), while maintaining seal integrity up to 70 bar.
“It’s designed to keep working in real-world failure conditions to protect their most critical assets, and reduce environmental impact, while driving down OPEX and CAPEX,” concluded Mike Eason, Chief Technology Officer, John Crane.
