CAR SEALS

An Introduction to Car Seals & Valve Safety

Car seals are a mechanical tool that is incorporated to lock the valves to prevent tampering or inadvertent operation whether being open or closed and prevent accidental function of the valve. It works as a self-locking and breakaway tool once it has completed its purpose.

In essence, these devices are much similar to plastic cable ties, but designed with gauge size adjustment to use for sealing a valve. The master lock cable device wraps around the valve regulation wheel or lever.

After getting around the valve head the cable returns to the body and locks into the position, once the cable is pulled tight it cannot be released. With fixing the cable, the valve is locked consequently. In case the valve is required to be opened or closed another time, then the cable must be cut to restore the operation of the valve’s head.In other words, once it’s deployed it must be cut and destroy the seal.

Who Can Benefit From Car Seals?

Any workplace related to processing pipelines, valved equipment, gas and welding cylinders, piping design, the personnel constantly need to handle valves and secure them with these seals to set into Car Seal Open,Car Seal Closed positions.

The seals are also used in the railway industries, gas and oil rigs, marine decks, and any other worksite that deals with sensitive or high-pressure cylinders and piping systems.

How Does It Work?

This basic functionality doesn’t need many options, car seals wrap tightly around a valve and stop its operation by mechanical fixation and limiting its rotatability. To continue to work with the same valve, authorized personnel are required to cut the seal and hence restore the maneuverability of the twist handle or wheel valves. It is crucial that the operator must be a trained professional to avoid any safety complications following the unsealing of the valves.

Furthermore, there should be a clear understanding and defined color codes to decide whether a valve is sealed in an open or closed position. Some industries use colors while others have integrated tags into their piping and cylinder systems to identify and perform a safe handling.

Some tags mention; Car Seal Open, or Car Seal Closed. Other car seals use acronyms such as CSO, or CSC. Instrumentation Diagrams may also include red and green, or yellow and orange color coding. Custom color codes are also available if your company follows a certain color definition, contact us directly by clicking here to order customized car seals. You may also check out our Padlock, Key and Padlock Cabinets

Structural Features of Car Seals

Material Composition

Our car seals are made from durable aluminium body of the lock and coated by a protective anodized colourin glayer in different colors. These car seals have a galvanized steel cable, which can also be ordered in stainless steel option. Designed with a multi-strand weaving for a reliable and corrosion free seal. This feature is especially important in high humidity and moist environments such as marine decks. As an alternative, plastic cable ties can be used for a total lockout of a valve, for a desirable period without compromising the safety.

Cable Gauge:

Following the universal valve sizings, the 2.5 mm car seals in diameter are known to be the best applicable sizing. These stainless steel cables are made from rust free galvanized steel covered with a protective zinc coating with a breaking threshold of over half a ton force. However as per the consumer requirement we can also supply smaller or larger diameter size cables.

Cable length:

The general length of our universal cable lockout is 1000 mm. Although they are available in customized varieties as well.

Car Seal Colors

Red and green are our original cable lockout colors, although customizable colors are available according to your workplace demands.

Car Seal Markings

You can order your car seals with us, for particular identification coding with numbers, alphabet and colors, in addition to plastic lock seals tags and markings.

How It Functions

When it comes to mechanical function, there are two categories of car seals;

Self Locking Car Seals
Retractable car seals
Breakaway Key varieties

The self-locking car seals work with a simple mechanism; once the cable enters back into the body, the seal locks itself without being released again.

Otherwise known as reusable car seals, the retractable variety is designed with a retractable cable lockout to release the seal.

Breakaway Key varieties come with a breakaway key for an adjustable cable lockout, to remove the cable once it has entered the body and sealing position, or tightening for further position adjustment. The key is used as a manual manipulator of the cable lock seals function.

We suggest purchasing a car seal cable cutter as well as the anti-tamper screwdriver for handling your valve system with a comprehensive kit. And preventing safety issues by incorporating the wrong tools.

Final Words

Car seals are simple tools that are designed for valve safety, and prevention of its operation once it has been sealed. As an all purpose cable lockout, it functions for cargo seals and railway car interlocking and or any other application for self-seal lockout device with nylon cable. The whole idea behind using these small devices is to improve safety and provide control over valve function in a workplace. These fragments are considerably economical and available in a variety of lengths and colors to choose from.

RAAH Safety Company offers a range of car seals with varying locking function, length, coding and colors. If you are looking for specific customizations or require more details on our valve sealing cables, contact us today and we will attend to all your requirements.