Innovative Solutions Using Alternative Materials

Background

PGC has a longstanding relationship with a customer who designs and manufactures lawnmowers, snow blowers, and irrigation system supplies for commercial, residential, agricultural, and public sectors. They are known to supply durable, high-quality products and maintain an overall high reputation in the industry. Being one of PGC's first major customers, they had the confidence to come to our engineers to partner on a quick and reliable solution for an existing product assembly. 

Challenge

This customer issued a service call on an assembly of one of their existing products. This assembly, under review for a separate issue, also housed a PGC gasket. When the customer's technicians addressed the service call's original cause, they found more issues. Once they opened the assembly, they noted two things: PSA separation and swelling of the gasket material. The customer's engineer reached out to PGC to assist in finding a solution for this unexpected issue. PGC engineers requested the customer to send them the part assembly in question to be subject to an in-depth review. 

The gasket in the assembly was produced using Formex and PSA. Our engineers determined that the separation and swelling issues were caused by the same thing: the grease used in the assembly. The grease caused the PSA to separate from the plate and the Formex material to swell slightly. 

Solution

Knowing the cause of the problem, PGC engineers made recommendations to the customer. Our engineers suggested adding a second plate to the assembly housing for the PSA separation. This additional plate would eliminate the need for PSA, as the second plate would hold the gasket in place without adhesive. To address the material swelling, PGC recommended changing the material from Formex to Teflon. Teflon is excellently chemically resistant to grease and would hold form. 

Results

The customer was fortunate that they could easily modify the plate's thickness to accommodate the addition of the second plate, solving the PSA issue. PGC engineers developed the replacement Teflon gasket prototypes and sent them to the customer for testing. The new part passed customer testing and was adopted as the standard part for upcoming productions. The customer was very pleased with PGC's innovative and quick solutions and has continued to partner with PGC on complex solutions.