High Demand Applications

Continental Disc Corporation’s SANITRX HPX® Rupture Discs

High Performance Sanitary Protection

Since 1965, Continental Disc Corporation has consistently led the industry in the design and manufacture of innovative, high-quality rupture disc (bursting disc) devices employed in a range of process industries worldwide. These applications include chemical, petrochemical, and petroleum refining, pharmaceutical, beverage, food and dairy, aerospace and electronics industries—to name only a few.

CDC maintains an ongoing commitment to providing the products, services, and quality, which customers have come to expect from the leader in overpressure safety devices. An autoclave is another example of a crucial tool that greatly benefits from the high quality, and durable rupture discs engineered and manufactured by CDC.

Autoclaves are steam sterilizing chambers designed to maintain a sterile atmosphere, contain and withstand extreme conditions of positive pressure, vacuum, heat and moisture. They play an essential role in a wide range of laboratory and industrial applications, specifically the sterilization of surgical tools, medical equipment and process media.

Consequently, when autoclaves fail to function properly, the resulting down time leads to extremely expensive and time-consuming inefficiencies.  Proper mechanical upkeep of autoclave technologies thus represents a major necessity in developing and maintaining efficient, cost-effective operations.  A common source of autoclave malfunction is rupture disc leakage or premature burst due to fatigue. CDC offers a solution to this problem with the SANITRX HPX® rupture disc.

Most autoclaves require rupture discs specified to protect the sanitary chamber against system over-pressure. Rupture discs not specifically designed to withstand the frequent pressure to vacuum cycles required in these demanding applications can leak or burst prematurely. CDC’s SANITRX HPX® Rupture Discs have proven to be durable enough to meet this critical industry need.

CDC’s technical team recently created a solution for a process engineer at a biotechnology facility who was experiencing costly shutdowns. These shutdowns were found to be due to leakage in the rupture discs used in the autoclave sterilization equipment at the facility. The CDC team determined that the root cause of this failure was the facility’s utilization of rupture disc technology that was developed over 20 years ago and thus no longer the leading technology for the extreme cycle conditions of the autoclave. The result was a fatigued rupture discs that failed prematurely. CDC solved the problem by replacing all outdated rupture discs with SANITRX HPX®. Built on years of research and development, the HPX® Rupture Disc Product Family has proven to withstand over 5,000,000 cycles from full vacuum to 95% of the marked burst rating. Performance at this level represent greater than a five-fold increase over previous industry standards.This extreme durability makes the SANITRX HPX® the perfect solution for autoclave pressure protection.

CDC engineers, manufactures and tests each lot of SANITRX HPX® Rupture Discs to match the precise specifications required to provide the essential overpressure protection for the equipment and withstand the operating conditions inherent in normal day-to-day autoclave operations. SANITRX HPX® rupture discs incorporate the latest technology features to optimize material thickness, score depth and dome configuration to insure the high performance, flow capacity and durability demanded by today’s process industries.  In addition, all SANITRX HPX rupture discs are designed and manufactured to meet critical ASME BPE criteria including dimensional characteristics required for use in industry standard tubing connections, SF1 or better surface finish, full traceability of all materials of construction and FDA/USP Class VI gasket material compliance.

For monitoring burst discs due to an overpressure event, CDC’s BDI or BDI-Flex burst disc indicators are frequently used as part of the SANITRX HPX rupture discs to automate activation of the over pressure alarm functions in the autoclave control system.