<title>Imaging of sealant injection into a main steam valve</title>

Abstract

The use of sealant injection into leaking valves, piping joints and fixtures has long been a common practice for commercial industry. There are many companies available to industry that specialize in this process. if the process is successful, it allows industry to maintain production and plan for equipment outages at a much more convenient time to them. This time delay allows for more formal planning of an outage. Parts may be stagged for the job at hand and for any other outage related work that it may be advantages to accomplish. The process of injecting the sealant median into pressurized steam valves has always been done 'blind' . This is because there was no way of knowing where the fluid would or would not go internally in valve bonnets or pressure seals. As a result, several negative problems could be caused. Overfihling of a void could result in the sealing media being forced into the system process. The resulting process contamination can be costly to repair or recover from. Under filling of a void allows the steam pressure to work on the sealant fluid and not allow it to harden. This will result in the leak returning after the steam energy has eaten away enough of the sealing fluid.