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Intake manifold class action settled
NEWS
Intake manifold class action settled
C
rawford Class Action Services reports a class action settlement has been approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Quebec Superior Court relating to General Motors intake manifold gaskets. Seventeen class actions were commenced across Canada in 2006 against GM alleging that the nylon intake manifold gaskets installed in certain General Motors Corporation and General Motors of Canada Limited (‘GM’) vehicles were defective. The Settlement provides for reimbursement to class members for certain repairs, provided claims are made by 30 April 2009. The Settlement does not constitute any admission of liability by GM who denies the allegations. The class action was certified for settlement purposes and the Settlement approved by Orders of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Quebec Superior Court. The action relates to a wide range of GM models built in the US and Canada between 1995 and 2003 which suffered internal coolant leaks.
Contact: Crawford Class Action Services, Canada. Tel: +1 866 640 9989, Email: [email protected], Web: www.gmcanadiansettlement.ca.
Conference and Course News Plenty of interest in fugitive emissions at Valve World
V
alve World is now a major event in the calendar and this, the sixth in the series had several parallel conference sessions and a large exhibition with over 400 exhibitors. Emissions and sealing in general is of sufficient interest to the valve community that it occupied three conference sessions and a Workshop over the three days of the event with many of the major seal suppliers to the valve market being represented among the exhibitors.
December 2008
The sessions on sealing within the conference started on the first afternoon with a Workshop on Sealing and Fugitive Emissions. For some reason the organisers invited Bob Flitney to be a speaker. He attempted to broaden the discussion by introducing a number of sealing techniques that are used in other industries and also by providing a comparison of the emission performance of various seal, packing and gasket types. This did not seem to broaden the ensuing discussion beyond the usual concern of various standards and specifications. A number of the papers presented were concerned with the relative merits of the various test procedures, or the benefits of individual products. Some of the more useful papers included two by G. Ravindran from Audco India on the complexities faced by valve manufacturers meeting the various specifications, a study of packing friction by Chesterton, results from an instrumented valve by Latty and details of an investigation of methods of packing valves to improve performance by Manfred Schaaf of Amtec. In addition to the formal sessions a Speaker’s Corner session by Barrie Kirkman provided his overview of the current status of the approach of the process industry to the control of fugitive emissions from valves, which he estimates at 3.6 million tonnes per year. His assessment of the current situation was that approximately one third of plants worldwide are taking emissions seriously, another third are paying lip service to emissions compliance and the remainder doing nothing. Papers presented at Valve World 2008 that were directly concerned with sealing and emissions included: K.J. Soeteman (DCI): To test or not to test. That is the question. Chris Boss and James Drago (Garlock Sealing Technologies), and Matt Wasielewski (Yarmouth Research and Technology): Experiences performing API Standard 622, Type testing of process valve packing for fugitive emissions. G. Ravindran and V. Ramakrishnan (Audco India): Fugitive emission compliance – Challenges faced by valve manufacturers. T. Ueda and M. Fujiwara (Nippon Pillar Packing): Development and testing of expanded graphite packing for low emission valves. Roland Mittelhammer (SGL Technologies. Global expanded graphite specifications could help to reduce fugitive emission. Philip M. Mahoney Jr. (A.W. Chesterton Co): Valve packing performance – Friction testing and lessons learned. G. Ravindran and P. Ananda Prasath (Audco India): Valve packing systems for high temperature applications.
IN BRIEF Henkel aquires additional adhesives business Henkel Corporation has acquired the National Adhesives business of National Starch and Chemical Co. This acquisition enables Henkel to offer customers a wider choice of brands and products for case and carton sealing, hot melt and liquid labelling, and palletizing. Even more CAD geometries available online The number of product CAD drawings available on line from Simrit has increased to 20 000. By using the mySimrit service it is possible to download 20 000 geometries in the standard CAD formats and also as rotatable PDFs. The inclusion of PDF files permits a 3D preview of the seals in a format that can be accessed by most potential users. New refrigerant has environmental benefits DuPont has developed and plans to commercialise a new refrigerant for automotive air conditioning that offers lower global warming potential than the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) R-134a, which is currently used. The new refrigerant candidate, hydrofluoro-olefin (HFO)-1234yf, is the product of a joint development agreement between DuPont and Honeywell. So far tests with the new refrigerant prove superior performance as well as environmental benefits offering improved energy efficiency and reduced global warming potential. Editor’s comment: This is included as I am sure elastomer compatibility will be of interest, I welcome any information. Further new appointments at Garlock Garlock Sealing Technologies has promoted Bruce Stratton to product manager for its line of expansion joints. Stratton has worked for Garlock for six years, both in product engineering and manufacturing in the expansion joint operations. The company has also promoted Chris Hicks to senior product manager for its line of non-asbestos, high-pressure sheet gasketing and fabricated products. Dana secures amended credit facility Dana Holding Corporation has received support from its lenders to amend the financial covenants for its $1.3 billion senior secured term credit facility. The amendment improves the ratios permissible for leverage and interest coverage. This covers the company’s financial covenants for each fiscal quarter to 2012. The company anticipates being in compliance with the amended covenants as of 31 December 2008. Permission was also obtained to dispose of certain non-core businesses and issue additional debt outside the United States. These amendments will provide Dana with greater flexibility as it considers strategic options and implements its restructuring plans.
Sealing Technology
5
Intake manifold class action settled
C
rawford Class Action Services reports a class action settlement has been approved by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Quebec Superior Court relating to General Motors intake manifold gaskets. Seventeen class actions were commenced across Canada in 2006 against GM alleging that the nylon intake manifold gaskets installed in certain General Motors Corporation and General Motors of Canada Limited (‘GM’) vehicles were defective. The Settlement provides for reimbursement to class members for certain repairs, provided claims are made by 30 April 2009. The Settlement does not constitute any admission of liability by GM who denies the allegations. The class action was certified for settlement purposes and the Settlement approved by Orders of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Quebec Superior Court. The action relates to a wide range of GM models built in the US and Canada between 1995 and 2003 which suffered internal coolant leaks.
Contact: Crawford Class Action Services, Canada. Tel: +1 866 640 9989, Email: [email protected], Web: www.gmcanadiansettlement.ca.
Conference and Course News Plenty of interest in fugitive emissions at Valve World
V
alve World is now a major event in the calendar and this, the sixth in the series had several parallel conference sessions and a large exhibition with over 400 exhibitors. Emissions and sealing in general is of sufficient interest to the valve community that it occupied three conference sessions and a Workshop over the three days of the event with many of the major seal suppliers to the valve market being represented among the exhibitors.
December 2008
The sessions on sealing within the conference started on the first afternoon with a Workshop on Sealing and Fugitive Emissions. For some reason the organisers invited Bob Flitney to be a speaker. He attempted to broaden the discussion by introducing a number of sealing techniques that are used in other industries and also by providing a comparison of the emission performance of various seal, packing and gasket types. This did not seem to broaden the ensuing discussion beyond the usual concern of various standards and specifications. A number of the papers presented were concerned with the relative merits of the various test procedures, or the benefits of individual products. Some of the more useful papers included two by G. Ravindran from Audco India on the complexities faced by valve manufacturers meeting the various specifications, a study of packing friction by Chesterton, results from an instrumented valve by Latty and details of an investigation of methods of packing valves to improve performance by Manfred Schaaf of Amtec. In addition to the formal sessions a Speaker’s Corner session by Barrie Kirkman provided his overview of the current status of the approach of the process industry to the control of fugitive emissions from valves, which he estimates at 3.6 million tonnes per year. His assessment of the current situation was that approximately one third of plants worldwide are taking emissions seriously, another third are paying lip service to emissions compliance and the remainder doing nothing. Papers presented at Valve World 2008 that were directly concerned with sealing and emissions included: K.J. Soeteman (DCI): To test or not to test. That is the question. Chris Boss and James Drago (Garlock Sealing Technologies), and Matt Wasielewski (Yarmouth Research and Technology): Experiences performing API Standard 622, Type testing of process valve packing for fugitive emissions. G. Ravindran and V. Ramakrishnan (Audco India): Fugitive emission compliance – Challenges faced by valve manufacturers. T. Ueda and M. Fujiwara (Nippon Pillar Packing): Development and testing of expanded graphite packing for low emission valves. Roland Mittelhammer (SGL Technologies. Global expanded graphite specifications could help to reduce fugitive emission. Philip M. Mahoney Jr. (A.W. Chesterton Co): Valve packing performance – Friction testing and lessons learned. G. Ravindran and P. Ananda Prasath (Audco India): Valve packing systems for high temperature applications.
IN BRIEF Henkel aquires additional adhesives business Henkel Corporation has acquired the National Adhesives business of National Starch and Chemical Co. This acquisition enables Henkel to offer customers a wider choice of brands and products for case and carton sealing, hot melt and liquid labelling, and palletizing. Even more CAD geometries available online The number of product CAD drawings available on line from Simrit has increased to 20 000. By using the mySimrit service it is possible to download 20 000 geometries in the standard CAD formats and also as rotatable PDFs. The inclusion of PDF files permits a 3D preview of the seals in a format that can be accessed by most potential users. New refrigerant has environmental benefits DuPont has developed and plans to commercialise a new refrigerant for automotive air conditioning that offers lower global warming potential than the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) R-134a, which is currently used. The new refrigerant candidate, hydrofluoro-olefin (HFO)-1234yf, is the product of a joint development agreement between DuPont and Honeywell. So far tests with the new refrigerant prove superior performance as well as environmental benefits offering improved energy efficiency and reduced global warming potential. Editor’s comment: This is included as I am sure elastomer compatibility will be of interest, I welcome any information. Further new appointments at Garlock Garlock Sealing Technologies has promoted Bruce Stratton to product manager for its line of expansion joints. Stratton has worked for Garlock for six years, both in product engineering and manufacturing in the expansion joint operations. The company has also promoted Chris Hicks to senior product manager for its line of non-asbestos, high-pressure sheet gasketing and fabricated products. Dana secures amended credit facility Dana Holding Corporation has received support from its lenders to amend the financial covenants for its $1.3 billion senior secured term credit facility. The amendment improves the ratios permissible for leverage and interest coverage. This covers the company’s financial covenants for each fiscal quarter to 2012. The company anticipates being in compliance with the amended covenants as of 31 December 2008. Permission was also obtained to dispose of certain non-core businesses and issue additional debt outside the United States. These amendments will provide Dana with greater flexibility as it considers strategic options and implements its restructuring plans.
Sealing Technology
5