Can You Afford a Poor Fastener or O-Ring Choice?

Can you afford a poor fastener or O-ring choice? A flawed fastener or O-ring could ruin the effectiveness of your product, compromise your entire project or cause a variety of serious issues that can lead to failure. This quick video covers six sources or causes of potentially catastrophic issues: Mechanical Integrity and Accuracy, Particulate Contamination, Hydrocarbon Contamination, Virtual Leaks, Outgassing, and Galling.

Transcript

00:00:03 [Music] a fraud fastener or o-ring could ruin the effectiveness of your product compromise your entire project or cause a variety of serious issues that can lead to failure here we will quickly go over six sources or causes of potentially catastrophic issues one mechanical integrity and accuracy

00:00:30 two particulate contamination three hydrocarbon contamination four virtual leaks [Music] five outgassing [Music] 6. galling [Music] one mechanical integrity and accuracy

00:00:52 uc components incorporated is an iso 9001 company and takes our incoming inspection extremely seriously as our product value is majority value add starting from poor raw material only leads to great expense and consternation downstream as a result the uc incoming inspection area and process are well equipped lit and staffed with cfs certified fastener specialist graduates

00:01:20 thorough inspection records are kept and available for review and all product is lot controlled for start to end traceability how do you fix a mechanical integrity and accuracy problem you don't uc does 2 particulate contamination most semiconductor and other vacuum processing applications as well as a variety of other clean critical

00:01:45 applications require parts that are free from surface particulate the origins of surface particulate are numerous including post-machining burrs and metal shavings mold flashing or uneven splicing seams dust and dirt from uncontrolled environments packaging residue how do you fix particulate contamination

00:02:07 problems properly cleaned and baked o-rings and vented fasteners such as the ready-vac line from uc components incorporated is your best option the ready-vac branding signifies an added level of particulate cleanliness assurance via in-process inspection host machining deburring and rinsing followed by multi-stage ultrasonic cleaning in a

00:02:29 controlled environment 3. hydrocarbon contamination hydrocarbon lubricants such as oils and grease can be a major source of contamination and are difficult to remove they have very low vapor pressure and will spread throughout a tool quickly requiring both lengthy and costly cleaning to fully remove not to mention

00:02:50 potential product wafer or substrate defect or outright failure hydrocarbon contamination could be from original part or subsequent manufacturing processes or even a fingerprint how do you fix hydrocarbon contamination the best way to fix lubricant contamination is to prevent it from happening in the first place never introduce lubricants into systems

00:03:14 where they should not be such as using oil-based lubricants during assembly utilizing properly cleaned and baked o-rings and vacuum clean critical appropriate finished products such as the ready-back line from uc components incorporated is your best option or virtual leaks a virtual leak is a trapped volume of gas at the base of blind tapped holes

00:03:36 within a vacuum chamber that cannot be easily pumped away these are internal leaks preventing or delaying operational system pressure fasteners are typically the source of virtual leaks and sealed systems as there may be voids between the parts being restrained the threads and shoulder of the screws or other incompletely filled holes

00:03:57 how do you solve a virtual leak issue the best way to solve a virtual leak is to utilize vented fasteners uc components incorporated manufactures a wide range of ready-vac vented screws washers and hex nuts that provide a path for trapped air to be pumped away from the bottoms sides and shoulders of blind tapped holes this allows for faster more thorough

00:04:20 pump down of vacuum systems and eliminates virtual leaks and any potential contaminants that can be found in these voids 5. outgassing h2o and other outgassing also called off-gassing refers to the release of gas that has become trapped frozen dissolved or absorbed in another material outgassing is a common problem when

00:04:44 creating or maintaining a high vacuum or other clean critical environment hydrocarbon contamination is a major source of outgassing however the most common form of outgassing is water on surfaces in the atmosphere and trapped within porous ceramics and metals o-rings also have vast amounts of trapped water often amounting to over 2 percent of their

00:05:07 total weight how can outgassing be solved utilizing the proper fastener-based material cleaning surfaces properly and or heating individual components a process called bakeout can help eliminate outgassing and other issues in your system use t-component's ready-vac vacuum baking process involves placing the

00:05:27 parts into a chamber and heating them under vacuum to drive out gases and other contaminants trapped in the parts six galling galling often called cold welding or cold fusing can occur when two fastener surfaces are placed under heavy pressure and locked together galling tends to be more common in alloys that self-generate an oxide surface film for corrosion

00:05:51 protection like stainless steel aluminum and titanium and high vacuum and ultra high vacuum systems like materials can become cold fused together due to thermal expansion and the lack of moisture created by the vacuum this phenomenon is not exclusive to vacuum and can happen in many process environments particularly those in which

00:06:12 lubrication is limited or not permitted how do you prevent galling the best way to avoid calling is to use a lubricant or anti-seize however in uhd or other clean applications the use of anti-seize lubricants is not an option because of the possibility of contamination in these instances you will need to use a fastener finish that is designed to

00:06:35 prevent galling such as those offered by uc components incorporated ready vac lines utilize parts that are made from alloys that lower the possibility of galling or another solution as you can see the proper material makeup treatment and handling of fasteners and o-rings for your vacuum and clean critical applications cannot be taken lightly the value of proper

00:06:57 o-rings and fasteners may seem trivial but their overall performance and savings for you both in cost and time can be measured by partnering with uc components incorporated manufacturers like you not only solve the incumbent issues discussed here but also boost safety quality speed to market and profitability [Music]