Make your components unbreakable

PEEK is well known for withstanding temperatures up to 220°C, but above 150°C even the best PEEK materials may not offer extremely high strength. This is about to change, however: VESTAKEEP^® 5000 G from Evonik Industries possesses impact strength that is about 20 percent higher than any previously used PEEK grade and can therefore be used even where other PEEK grades fail. The new VESTAKEEP^® is of particular interest for suppliers to the oil and gas industries, who work in the temperature range –40 to 150°C and sometimes significantly beyond these limits. The high elastic modulus of the new PEEK therefore meets increasing requirements with regard to long-term exposure to high temperatures.

Partners and customers of Evonik, who have tried out the new PEEK have already reported the first successes: They have been able to achieve higher tear strengths with VESTAKEEP^® 5000 G than with any other PEEK material on the market.

A concrete example of an application is provided by very large gasket rings with diameters of up to 2000 mm. In the HCM process, the gasket rings formerly used to break during the attempt to press them into the cavity of the metallic base plate. VESTAKEEP^® 5000 G withstands such stresses without any problem. A similar situation arose in the production of rings by the extrusion technique: Production previously failed because gravitational forces made a circular geometry of large diameter impossible. With VESTAKEEP^® 5000 G, however, the material is so tough in the melt that large rings are now easier to produce than with the usual materials.