Introduction
At DBA Silencing, we make thousands of different parts. These units vary widely. Some of our coolant components aren’t much longer than your forearm and can be picked up easily. Many of our mining truck mufflers, meanwhile, stand as tall as you do and weigh a great deal more. A lot of our exhaust pipes feature our proprietary composite shells, which greatly reduce mine site hazards such as truck fires. Most of our coolant components, on the other hand, are protected not by composite shells but rather by industrial primers and topcoats.
What do all these parts have in common, you ask, with an inquisitively wrinkled brow? Well, they’re all manufactured from high-quality materials, of course. And they’ve all been carefully welded and painstakingly inspected. Many of them also feature flanges. While our air intake components don’t include flanges, the majority of our exhaust parts and coolant components do include this indispensable common denominator.
What Are Flanges?
Just as there are many types of DBA parts, there are many types of flanges. There are, for instance, weld neck flanges, slip-on flanges, socket weld flanges, and blind flanges. Generally speaking, a flange is a unit that helps connect two items together. At DBA, our exhaust flanges link different sections of an exhaust system. Our coolant flanges are similar: they help link the assorted pieces that make up one of our coolant kits.
DBA flanges are typically welded to the ends of DBA pipes, and they allow our components to be fastened to other pipes, to valves, to fittings, and so on. In some cases, our flanges are designed to be bolted and in other cases they’re meant to be secured with a device such as a V-Band Clamp. {If you happen to be interested in learning more about that last item, you may wish to check out our blog post entitled “Exhaust Clamps For Champs“.}
Making DBA Exhaust Flanges
For decades, DBA Silencing relied on external suppliers for its flanges. We have, in recent years, moved our flange production in-house. This shift has resulted in a number of significant benefits.
First: we can control the quality of the flanges we’re using, and ensure that they meet our standards.
Second: we’re no longer at the mercy of other companies who may or may not adhere to agreed-upon lead times.
Third: by making flanges ourselves, we reduce their cost considerably, and this is a savings that we’re able to pass along to our customers.
As mentioned above, some of our exhaust flanges and coolant flanges are designed to be bolted in place. These flanges are flat, and we typically cut them out of thick steel sheets using our water jet cutting machine. Once these units are cut, we then “face them” or “true them up” using a lathe. In other words, we ensure the flatness of the flange face by making multiple passes with the lathe, taking off perhaps 1/16 of an inch in total.
In some cases, the production of flanges is complicated by the need to include grooves for O-rings. An O-ring is a gasket in the shape of a torus, or doughnut. It is typically a loop of elastomer with a round cross-section, designed to be seated in a channel and compressed during assembly between two parts, forming a seal at the interface.
The addition of O-ring grooves is relatively straightforward, but surface roughness requirements can make the process more challenging. Some of our mining industry customers would like their O-ring grooves to feature a 32Ra finish. Ra is a measure of the average roughness of a surface. It expresses the average height of a surface’s irregularities; its peaks and valleys. A 32Ra finish has an average roughness of 32 microinches. Smooth as silk!
So yes, achieving a 32Ra finish can be a daunting task. At DBA, we overcome this hurdle by using one of our three blast cabinets. A blast cabinet is a closed-loop system in a box that allows an operator to forcibly propel a stream of abrasive material against a surface or item. The operator blasts the parts from outside the cabinet by placing his or her arms in gloves attached to holes in the front wall of the unit. We use a particular type of glass bead, directed in accordance with a precise methodology, in order to attain the 32Ra that’s desired.
Let’s move now from flat flanges to V-Band flanges. These units are more like hoops, and we produce them by slicing up thick-walled tubes of heavy-duty steel. Once our saw has finished chopping up one of these tubes, we use our lathe to mill and machine the resulting rings. There are exceptions, of course, but – generally speaking – our coolant flanges are flat and our exhaust flanges are engineered to be compatible with flange clamps such as V-Bands.
Why Flanges Are Important
Modern mining trucks are some of the largest vehicles on Earth. It doesn’t seem like small connecting components like flanges would be particularly critical to their successful operation, but these unassuming units do play several vital roles.
1. Leak-Free Connections
Exhaust systems handle toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, and these must be safely expelled if we wish to prevent harm to operators and the environment. Exhaust flanges help create a tight seal between exhaust components, minimizing the risk of leaks. This ensures compliance with environmental standards and safeguards the health of workers.
2. Absorbing Vibrations
Mining trucks endure constant vibrations from rough terrain and heavy loads. These vibrations can strain exhaust systems, potentially leading to cracks or detachment. Flanges for exhaust act as a stabilizing element, ensuring that the pipes and other components remain securely in place despite the mechanical stress.
3. Ease Of Disassembly
One of the key advantages of using flanges is their modular nature. Imagine how cumbersome it would be to install {or attempt to fix} a network of pipes that was welded throughout. The use of flanges allows sections of the exhaust system to be separated from one another and then reassembled fairly easily for maintenance or repair. This is especially crucial in the mining industry, where fleet downtime can result in significant {and expensive} productivity losses.