Y Strainer Material Types / Materials of Construction

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It’s important to choose the right type of Y strainer for specific piping systems. Y strainers are made of various materials, including metals and plastics. They are an essential part of pipelines in helping prevent solids and debris from mixing into the liquid in a flowline. They also help protect the longevity of other equipment in piping systems and prevent downtime from unscheduled maintenance and repairs by eliminating unwanted solids and particles before they get to crucial pieces like pumps, steam traps, flow meters, and control valves.

Different Body Materials Used

The materials Y strainers are made of determine the types of conditions and applications they are best suited for. They can be used in such applications as steam, liquid, natural gas, and air pipelines. Below are some of the most used Y strainer materials and suggested applications.

Stainless Steel

Stainless steel Y strainers are commonly used for applications in which freedom from contamination and resistance to high corrosion is required. It’s the preferred material for food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. However, stainless steel may be more expensive than some of the other Y strainer material options. (View products)

Cast Iron

Cast iron Y strainers are typically used in piping systems that do not have high pressure and high temperatures and where the system isn’t exposed to high thermal or mechanical shock. Cast iron is the most commonly used strainer body. It’s used for bigger-sized potable water lines and various non-potable water systems as well as a variety of other product and process uses.

Carbon Steel

Y strainers that are made with carbon steel are used with high pressure and temperatures and are very resistant to thermal and mechanical stress, because they are strong and durable. They are also used for applications that have a fire risk. Carbon steel bodies are used primarily in the oil and petrochemical industry. (View products)

Bronze

Bronze Y strainers are an effective option for removing dirt, rust, and adhesives from piping systems. Bronze body y strainers are often used in brackish, saline, and seawater applications, as well as for potable water services. However, it is more expensive than some of the other options. (View products)

Brass

Brass Y strainers are an affordable solution for various applications. Brass is often used for upstream installations to protect regulators, pumps, and control valves from unwanted solids like rust and pipe scale. (View products.)

PVC and CPVC

Y strainers made from PVC or CPVC (polyvinyl chloride or chlorinated polyvinyl chloride) are an ideal choice for removing dirt, debris, and other solids from commercial and industrial piping systems. They can withstand high pressures and can be installed vertically or horizontally, making installation convenient. While PVC can only tolerate temperatures up to 140° degrees Fahrenheit, CPVC can withstand temperatures as high as 200° Fahrenheit. They have excellent corrosion and chemical resistance. PVC and CPVC are versatile materials, making these types of Y strainers suitable for a wide range of applications. Additionally, they are inexpensive compared to other options. (View products here and here)

Can You Mix Metal & PVC (Plastic) Strainers?

With so many different materials, you may wonder if you can mix metal and plastic components in piping systems. Perhaps you need to replace a Y strainer in a piping system that is metal. Plastic Y strainers are typically less expensive than those made of stainless steel or other metals. But, will it work to use a plastic Y strainer in a metal piping system?

Plastic Y strainers can be used in metal piping systems; however, it’s important to be aware of some factors that can affect how successful your application ends up being. When deciding whether to use a plastic Y strainer in a metal pipeline, there are three main considerations:

1. Temperature and pressure rating. Often times, metal components are used in piping systems because of higher operating temperatures. If you plan to use a plastic Y strainer in a metal system, make sure that the temperature and pressure range of the application is within the plastic Y strainer’s acceptable range.
2. Chemical resistance. It’s also important to consider the potential for shock pressure generation (water hammer) in the piping system, which could prove to be too harsh for a plastic Y strainer, causing damage and resulting in downtime and more maintenance. Look for things like a system flow rate that’s more than 8’ per second, positive displacement pumps, fast opening or closing actuated valves, quick starting pumps, and solenoid valves, before you mix materials in a piping system.
3. Installation and stress. The stress that will be placed on the plastic Y strainer is a critical installation consideration. Stress can cause problems or damage right away, or it can accumulate over time and show up sometime in the future. So, it’s important to make sure that the metal and plastic components are properly aligned. If they have to be forced into place, there will be problems at some point. Additionally, be sure to watch out for misalignment of the mating pipe flanges, as well as oversize face-to-face dimensions of the flanges. To avoid thermal expansion, you may want to use expansion joints to compensate, or you can try installing plastic pipe on the outlet and inlet of the Y strainer to keep it from attaching directly to metal pipe.

Choosing the Right Material Type

Not all piping applications are the same. As a result, it’s important to choose the right pipeline components, made of the right type of material, for the specific job. Y strainers are available in various materials, including those highlighted above. You can see that each material is ideal for specific uses and types of piping systems. When you use Y strainers made of the right material for your pipeline, it helps ensure efficient operation, reduced downtime, and longer lifespans for crucial equipment.

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Comparison of Fabricated and Cast Strainers

Which do you need - a cast or fabricated basket strainer design?

Pipeline strainers are often considered a commodity product because the primary design criteria are considered “universal”:

PRIMARY DESIGN CRITERIA
1. material of construction
2. connection type
3. connection size
4. style simplex, duplex or automatic
5. element retention

With competitive price and timely delivery, BSTV sincerely hope to be your supplier and partner.

This article explains the differences of cast and custom fabricated strainer designs, complementing the following articles:

Simply put, most customers use fabricated strainers to maximize filtration efficiency for their specific application. Sometimes the liquid characteristics or engineering specifications necessitate using a custom fabricated design, but you can benefit from using a custom fabricated strainer design even when a cast design would work.

Open Area Ratio
Cast strainer designs have a fixed open area ratio (OAR); this is the ratio of the open area of the filter element to the open area of the inlet nozzle. As this ratio increases the frequency of element cleaning decreases. The OAR is mostly dictated by the strainer design, with Y and T styles having low ratios (1:1 or 2:1) and basket strainers of 5:1 or better OARs.

Although it is not a guarantee, most fabricated strainers have a higher OAR than cast strainers and that is because cast strainers are designed to minimize cost. It is possible to cast strainers with thinner wall thicknesses and overall smaller dimensions compared to their fabricated versions which are physically larger due to the required welding procedures.

OAR Trade-Off
You might enjoy an initial cost savings and quicker delivery purchasing a cast strainer at the expense of more frequent basket cleanings. Labor hours related to strainer maintenance are often overlooked during the procurement process, but it should not because pipeline strainers last decades and those labor hours add-up over the years. Its not only labor hours, personnel exposure to the process liquid and spillage contribute to overhead costs also.

Applications Requiring Fabricated Strainers
Some applications require features which cannot be provided in cast designs, for example allowing for corrosion. Due to the manufacturing technique for cast strainers it is not possible to customize the thickness of the body or nozzles. Such strainers have varying wall thicknesses with the design meant to withstand a certain pressure and temperature combination and cannot be altered from the tooling used at the foundry.

Fabricated strainers can be made from thicker materials, their connections can be customized by size, type and location and they are available in exotic alloys that cast versions are not.

Examples of Customized Fabricated Strainers
One of the most common customizations differentiating fabricated strainers from cast strainers is attaching smaller sized connections to match the pipeline it will be installed into; this is done to improve the OAR.

Liquid can be transferred at high velocities and therefore smaller pipeline sizes are used to reduce cost and space but this can be problematic for a pipeline strainer. Once the inlet velocity exceeds about 10 FPS there is an increased likelihood that the internal strainer basket is damaged. Strainer baskets are typically sealed against the strainer body through the downwards force the cover applies to the arched spring-like basket handle. At high velocities the baskets begin to spin, damaging both the basket and strainer body.

In such situations the strainer body can be oversized, so perhaps you are essentially installing a 6" strainer into a 4" pipeline. A 6" fabricated strainer can have 4" connections, doubling the OAR from 7:1 to 14:1 and reducing the velocity by almost 50%. If a cast 6" strainer was used, a separate transition spool would need to be fabricated for the inlet and outlet, increasing the overall cost and number of potential leakage points.

Mesh lined baskets reduce the OAR of a given size strainer significantly unless offset by using a larger size basket commensurate with a larger sized
strainer body.

Code Stamps, NDT and NDE
Only fabricated strainers can be provided with an ASME code stamp due to the specific manufacturing requirements related to code stamping. Applications requiring magnetic particle testing, ultrasonic weld/wall thickness tests and non-standard welding procedures (or even a requirement of minimum welder qualifications) are indications that a fabricated strainer is required. These types of requirements are often industry specific with the oil and gas industry being notorious for ensuring stringent manufacturing and quality control procedures are used throughout the manufacturing process.

Alternate Nozzle Locations
The basic pipeline strainer design has inlet and outlet nozzles 180° apart at the same elevation, often referred to as "inline". This is the most common nozzle orientation, however there are applications which benefit from nozzles having the inlet and outlet on the same side (referred to as "loop" configuration) and even 45° or 90° offset. Most of the time these special nozzle orientations are driven by limited space as might be characteristic of portable systems located on trucks and ships.

Advantages of Cast Strainers
If your flow rate (velocity) and OAR can be satisfied with a cast strainer then you benefit from lower costs and quicker lead times. Cast strainers are mass produced and require less labor; the labor that is used is often low-cost labor because most cast strainers originate from foundries in China and India. These countries do not have the environmental and labor protection laws that manufacturers in the USA are subject to, so it's just not possible to cast strainers in the USA at a competitive price.

As previously mentioned, the amount of material used for a cast product is often less due to sophisticated tooling used by the foundry, a big factor contributing to lower cost. So even after you account for the ocean freight cost to North America, cast strainers almost always cost less than a locally fabricated strainer.

Yoke Style Access Covers

Most cast strainers have quick-opening strainer basket chamber covers which require only a few turns of a T-Bolt to access the strainer basket. Fabricated designs typically have a fully bolted cover design with an option for a hinged cover and swing-bolts which add significantly to the cost of the strainer due to the extra labor.

Quick Delivery
The mass production nature of cast strainers results in physical inventory and lead times reduced to whatever is required to fabricate the strainer basket (typically within 1 week). Fabricated strainers must go through a rigorous process of drawing generation/approval, acquiring raw materials, cutting/bending and welding procedures in addition to various non-destructive testing (NDT), resulting in at least 4 to 6 weeks for shipment after receipt of an order. If there are supply chain interruptions or a backlog of orders that lead time can easily extend to 12+ weeks.

Made In the USA
There are increasing requirements for government agencies and their vendors to purchase products of which 55% of their value originates from the USA. It is difficult to supply a cast strainer for such applications because the strainer body itself is often cast overseas. One way around this (prior to the January 2021 update), was to re-source the chamber cover hardware (bolts/nuts), fabricating the basket, re-testing (hydrostatic test) the body and re-painting the strainer so it can be considered to have enough USA value to satisfy the Buy American Act requirements. These added parts and procedures increased the cost and lead time, reducing the biggest advantages of cast strainers. Now that they Buy American Act has been updatcASTed, 95% of the iron and steel content must be of US origin to satisfy the Buy American Act. An exception can be made if the foreign cast strainer is 20-30% less expensive than the USA version.

Let us leverage our strainer sizing and selection experience from the previous 20 years to assist you with your next strainer application. We approach your project from the perspective of solving a problem or satisfying specific goals; explaining and quoting multiple options to ensure you are making an informed decision. Our website at https://fdpp.com has many articles, PDF files and automated sizing tools enabling comparison of several brands of strainers; our assistance is only a phone call or email away and has no cost or obligation to you.

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