Materials

The Issue with Traditional Materials

Materials like silicon, rubber or even canvas are still commonly used for flexible connections in plants across many processing industries.

Whilst often cheap initially, these types of materials are not always able to maintain their quality and performance over a long period of time. They are often prone to tearing easily, requiring downtime for frequent replacements and clean-ups.

These connectors or sleeves are also usually fastened with old-style clamps which provide an improper seal, resulting in product leaking throughout the plant.

Long term, they're likely to be costing you money.

Leaking hose-clamped connector in a sugar plant

Teflex Woven Detail

Learn about BFM® Materials

BFM® fitting uses only the highest quality materials to ensure that your product maintains its quality throughout your entire process.

Visit our videos page to see our BFM® products being tested against traditional hose-clamped connectors.

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BFM® Materials

Seeflex
Teflex
Flexi
LM3 & LM4
FM1 Breather
Covers
Spigots

Seeflex

What's it made of?

BFM® Seeflex is an ether-based polyurethane alloy that is extremely strong, flexible and will maintain its shape to ensure your product flows evenly through your process.

It is manufactured using a special process that means it is much stronger than most other urethanes, and won't tear or rip like silicon or rubber.

BFM® Seeflex has been improved over the years to become our most popular material offering due to its versatility and durability.

What Seeflex products are available?

We offer multiple products with our Seeflex material, with each variant built to handle manufacturing processes that traditional hose-clamp connectors cannot:

Seeflex Material Declaration

Teflex

What's it made of?

BFM® Teflex is a pure PTFE that is very good at handling high-temperature applications and can be used across the full pH scale - in other words, acids and caustic products won't affect Teflex.

BFM® Teflex product range includes Teflex Woven, Teflex NP Black & Teflex NP Opaque and each is manufactured to accommodate different manufacturing process requirements.

What Teflex products are available?

Teflex Woven is made from pure woven PTFE, ideal for applications with movement. (i.e. oscillation, vibration). Although it is a woven product, it has very low air permeability.

Teflex NP Black is made from pure PTFE. It offers excellent surface resistivity (10⁶) and can be used across the full pH scale. It is also ideal for light-sensitive applications due to its black colour.

Teflex NP Opaque is made from pure PTFE. A semi-transparent material is used to allow visibility into your product flow. Teflex NP Opaque is insulative.

Flexi

What's it made of?

BFM® Flexi Connectors are made from our ether-based polyurethane Seeflex material, however they are manufactured with a 316SS coil to achieve the spring-like shape which make Flexi Connectors the perfect solution for compression.

What Flexi products are available?

Flexi-Connector is our standard Flexi-shaped connector, ideal for use on bag feeders, filling heads or bulk bag fillers.

Flexi-Earthed is a Flexi-Connector with terminal lugs at each end, designed to be attached to earthing cables to provide maximum safety.

Flexi-Light is a Flexi-Connector with a lighter 316 stainless steel wire coil and a slightly thinner polyurethane, making it perfect for weigh-scale type applications, as it provides less resistance than the standard Flexi-Connector.

Note: The wall thickness of the Flexi-Connector and Flexi-Earthed material is 0.1mm thinner on the smaller diameter connectors (i.e. for 100mm & 200mm (4" & 8") it is 0.6mm (1/32") and for 250mm & 300mm (10 & 12") it is 0.70mm (1/32")).

LM3 & LM4

What's it made of?

Our woven connector range includes LM3 and LM4. Each connector provides a level of breathability due to their woven material, allowing pressure to be alleviated throughout your process.

LM3 is made from 100% woven polypropylene, remaining flexible at low-temperature environments. LM3 has relatively good air permeability (13 (cm³/cm²/sec at 125Pa) / 25 (ft³/ft²/min at 0.5 inch wg).

LM4 is made from 100% woven polyester, ideal for use in higher-temperature environments. LM4 has relatively low air permeability (0.4 (cm³/cm²/sec at125Pa) / 0.8 (ft³/ft²/min at 0.5 inch wg).

FM1 Breather

What's it made of?

The FM1 Breather Bag is made from a 100% polyester needle-felt and is used for venting hoppers and other contained vessels (air permeability of 17 (cm³/cm²/sec at 125Pa) / 33 (ft³/ft²/min at 0.5 inch wg)).

The FM1 Beather Bag will allow air into the system without any dust escaping into the environment.

Covers

What are they made of?

BFM® manufacture two covers that can be used on our entire connector range. Our covers were designed to be an additional safety layer over our connectors when dealing with sensitive products.

What Covers are available?

Kevlar Cover is a flame retardant cover, typically used in overpressure and potentially explosive applications to reduce the risk of fire.

Black Out Cover is made from an all-black polypropylene fibre, designed to cut out light for light-sensitive applications.

Spigots

To install any BFM® fitting connector, you will need a BFM® spigot.

What are they made of?

Our spigots are available in three materials:

Stainless Steel 304L
Stainless Steel 316L
C22 Hastelloy

BFM® Spigots are specially shaped to hold the BFM® fitting connectors securely in place and provide a 100% seal.

Spigots have a total standard length of 89mm (3.5"), including a 52mm (2") tail that can be easily cut down or cut on an angle to suit your existing pipework.

Getting Started with BFM® fittings

Get in touch with one of our local Authorized BFM® fitting Distributors to help find the right solution for you. They will help work through what you want to achieve and how BFM® fitting can improve your plant.

Contact a Distributor