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Split seal - will it take more vibration?

Split seal - will it take more vibration?

Split seal - will it take more vibration?

(OP)
Got a problem pump that is regularly breaking the seal faces.  It's a vaneaxial pump used as a circulator on a vacuum evaporator in phosphoric acid service.  528 rpm, 27,000 gpm, 195F, 21 psi deltaP across the impeller.  The current Flowserve seal gets broken about 5 times a year when the pump impeller chatters during water washes.  The silicon carbide seal faces shatter, and since it isn't a split seal it takes about 12 to 20 hours of downtime to fix.  A split seal should be replacable in less than 2 hours.

I'm trying to get our maintenance people to use a split seal, but they think the split seals are unreliable.  It doesn't fix the root cause, which the pump manufacturer says is us running against a shutoff head pressure.  However, the split seal manufacturer I want to use (John Crane 37FS) says this seal will tolerate vibration better since it has a rubber 'boot' that will isolate the seal faces.  Usually after a mechanical seal breaks, the pump is otherwise in okay condition and just needs a new seal.  Any comments on split seal robustness would be appreciated.

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