Rupture Discs for Pressure Relief - How Rupture Discs Work

A rupture disc is a non-closing pressure relief device used to protect industrial applications from overpressure- or vacuum-related events. Learn about how rupture discs work and what sets Fike apart in our rupture disc manufacturing process.
Transcript, in order of appearance: Andrew Roth, Michael Krebill, Scot Reeder, Bon Shaw, Dean Miller
There’s a number of different things that happen with an overpressure event. Some of it can be relatively minor, and some of it could be absolutely catastrophic in nature, ultimately leading to a refinery plant that explodes, has a fire, or something of that nature.
These overpressure conditions we talk about are extremely dangerous. We are protecting the equipment and the monetary value but we are definitely also protecting people lives.
A rupture disc is a specific kind of non-closing pressure relief device. The neat thing about rupture discs is they react to the overpressure situation in a matter of 1-2 milliseconds, so they open instantaneously when called upon. Controlling the entire manufacturing process from beginning to end is really critical to the eventual performance and reliability of the rupture disc. There’s the control and care and handling of raw material, there’s the processing, shaping and trimming of the product, there’s the testing and heat treating-all follow through in a specific manner according to a specific process. All of that comes together to create a quality, reliable product.
We have some world-class technologies like our G2 manufacturing technology, which ensures a high degree of repeatability and reliability, so it’s essentially reducing standard deviation errors within our manufacturing process.
We’ve always burst a number of devices we make. Sometimes we burst as many as every other one in a lot to ensure the quality of the delivered product to the customer.
We do a lot of validation testing over a wide range of operating scenarios so we have a really good idea of how a disc is going to perform over a wide range of process conditions. That gives us a lot of confidence when we specify a product that we are going to deliver long-term reliability.
We innovate and we make game-changing inventions that are patented that push even our competitors to push even their game. One of my fundamental jobs is to take what I just finished and obsolete it-make it better. That by itself keeps us fresh as a company, our products current. And so we just keep marching forward.