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24 To: Question: I currently work in India refurbishing a land rig for an Indian Oil company. The operators have had repeated washouts of their mud pump piping flanges and have not understood why. It seems they have put excess grease in the ring grooves behind the gaskets, and have installed used ring gaskets into already damaged grooves. With the information from your website I have now educated everyone and hopefully the washouts will stop. Can you provide some information on re-machining corroded or washed out ring grooves? Answer: Shops that re-cut ring grooves should have on hand a current copy of API 6A or ISO 10423, there they will find dimensions, with tolerances, of seal grooves and flanges. Re-cutting of ring grooves consists of skim cutting the face of the flange to narrow and make shallow the existing groove so that the sides and bottom will have stock to re-cut. Unfortunately API tolerances flanges so that manufacturers may machine a new flange to minimum thickness, leaving no stock for re-facing and re-cutting. In the event of no stock, shops may restore grooves to usable condition by first filling the cleaned up (by machining) old grooves with weld metal, stress relieving, and re-cutting the groove. To avoid some of this problem in the field, WOODCO USA makes a practice of machining new flanges to the maximum thickness allowed by API, leaving enough stock for about two re-cuts. Additionally WOODCO USA presents the information on our Web Site to provide users with guidance or training material so they may avoid the situation you faced. Click here to see Field Appraisal of Ring Grooves Other Q & A's related to Ring Grooves and Ring Gaskets include:
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