CCS Weave: The High-Shrink Material That’s Changing the Game

 

When it comes to high-performance sealing solutions, Covalence has engineered something truly remarkable: CCS Weave. This innovative material is used to create Casing Seals, Flange Seals, and other applications where a high-shrink product is essential. But what makes CCS Weave stand out in a crowded market? Let’s dive in.

1. Unmatched Shrink Ratio
CCS Weave boasts an impressive 66% shrink ratio. To put that into perspective: a 24-inch casing pipe could see the Caseal shrink all the way down to just 8.5 inches if allowed. This dramatic shrink capability ensures a tight, secure fit, even on irregular surfaces.

2. Durable, Multi-Layer Construction
At the heart of CCS Weave is a fiber-reinforced sheet laminated between two layers of polyethylene. This construction delivers exceptional performance in key areas:

• Penetration resistance – tough enough to withstand challenging environments
• Abrasion resistance – maintains integrity over time
• Elongation – flexible enough to handle complex applications

3. Hyper-Aggressive Mastic Sealant
A seal is only as good as the bond it creates. CCS Weave utilizes a hyper-aggressive mastic sealant that adheres well to a variety of substrates—even when surface preparation isn’t perfect. This ensures reliable sealing performance across diverse field conditions.

High-shrink materials can introduce a unique problem: how to keep the material intact during the shrinking process. Covalence tackled this challenge by borrowing a brilliant technique from Raychem, developed decades ago. Since 1995, we’ve been sewing a nylon zipper into the sleeve using Kevlar thread.

When the ends of the sleeve are zipped together, even the extreme 66% shrink ratio isn’t enough to break the threads. This simple yet ingenious solution allows CCS Weave to deliver maximum shrink performance without compromising structural integrity.

CCS Weave isn’t just another sealing material—it’s a high-performance solution designed to meet the demands of today’s toughest applications. With its impressive shrink ratio, multi-layer durability, and clever engineering, it’s a product that engineers and field teams alike can rely on.

It’s more than cool—it’s next-level material innovation.

Seal for Life Casing Seals & Flange Seals: Proven Protection for Challenging Applications

    

When it comes to protecting critical pipeline components, some applications simply refuse to cooperate. Off-center carriers. Large sizing disparities.

That’s where Seal for Life (formerly Raychem) Casing Seals and Flange Seals truly shine.

These aren’t just “wraps.” They’re engineered sealing systems designed to solve real-world field challenges.

Key Advantages:

• Fiber-reinforced, multi-layer heat shrink backing

• Integrated fiber mesh layer for enhanced penetration resistance

• Coated with a very aggressive mastic sealant

• Works even when the carrier pipe is not centered inside the casing

• Approximate 66% shrink ratio

That high shrink ratio is critical. It allows the material to conform across a wide range of casing-to-carrier pipe diameter ratios — without sacrificing seal integrity.

The aggressive mastic flows into irregularities, filling voids and creating a durable moisture barrier. The fiber reinforcement provides mechanical strength to resist damage and environmental stress.

The result? A reliable seal in one of the most challenging spots on a pipeline.

How to Seal up a Casing

Caseal is a highly effective solution for sealing casing pipes, offering a range of features and benefits that make it a preferred choice for various applications. Here are the key attributes of Caseal:

1. Fiberglass Reinforced Backing: The Caseal sleeve utilizes a fiberglass reinforced, radiation cross-linked polyethylene backing. This design provides exceptional mechanical resistance, ensuring the sleeve can withstand high levels of stress and external forces.

2. High Recovery Capacity: The Caseal sleeve has a high recovery capacity, meaning it can shrink significantly (up to 65% shrinkage ratio) to conform to irregular transitions and variations in pipe diameters. This feature allows for versatility in sealing applications and reduces the need for carrying multiple sizes, thus minimizing inventory and logistics costs.

3. Resistance to Environmental and Mechanical Forces: Caseal is designed to resist a wide range of environmental conditions and mechanical forces. It is reliable and provides a moisture-proof seal, making it suitable for demanding applications where protection against moisture ingress is crucial. The sleeve is extremely tough, ensuring long-lasting performance in challenging environments.

4. Specially Formulated Sealant: The Caseal sleeve incorporates a specially formulated sealant that ensures a strong bond and tight seal to virtually any substrate. It maintains its elasticity and sealing characteristics over a wide temperature range, enabling reliable sealing even in extreme temperature conditions.

5. Self-Healing Effect: The sealing adhesive used in Caseal has a self-healing effect. It automatically flows and repairs minor mechanical damages, providing added protection and saving time by eliminating the need for manual repairs or additional interventions.

6. Zipper Closure System: Caseal features a zipper closure system that allows for simple and fast installation. The sleeve can be easily wrapped around the casing pipe, and the zipper securely closes it, ensuring a tight fit and effective sealing. This user-friendly design streamlines the installation process.

7. Versatility: Caseal can be used even when the service pipe is not concentric with the casing. This flexibility makes it highly versatile and suitable for a wide range of applications where alignment between the pipe and casing may not be perfect.

8. Easy Installation: No special equipment is required to install Caseal, making the process fast and straightforward. Standard gas torches can be used to heat-shrink the sleeve into place. The simplicity of installation reduces labor requirements and keeps overall installation costs low.

By offering exceptional mechanical resistance, high recovery capacity, resistance to environmental and mechanical forces, and a self-healing effect, Caseal provides a reliable, moisture-proof seal for casing pipes. Its specially formulated sealant, zipper closure system, versatility, and easy installation further contribute to its effectiveness and cost-efficiency.

Casing Seal

Sealing A Casing Pipe

     When working with casing pipe; making sure that no water (or other foreign substances) gets into the casing and begins to rust it out from the inside is absolutely imperative (not to mention the fact that DOT regulations do generally require that casing pipes be properly sealed by approved methods). 

     This is something we deal with all of the time.  There are actually two options for sealing up casing pipe.  Because the costs of these options are so low; I've actually seen many cases where both are installed (they can be installed simply and easily without obstructing one another).  These two options are LinkSeal and Caseal.

     Linkseal is actually a ring around the pipe that fits inside the casing pipe; surrounding the carrier pipe.  It forms a physical seal and is able to hold internal pressure.  This is done by linking together multiple links to form an air and water tight seal around that carrier....sealed up to the internal surface of that casing, creating a perfect water and air tight seal.  Of course, there are occasions where physical damage or some kind of installer error could allow some sort of a leak path there.  That is why we often see folks install a Caseal externally.  This brings a 'belt and suspender system' to bear.  With both systems in place, that casing pipe is protected.

     Caseal is a heat shrinkable wrap around product for externally sealing the casing to carrier connection.  The Caseal is coated with an aggressive mastic sealant that bonds well to all known pipeline coatings and forms a tight seal; preventing air and water ingress.  The Caseal utilizes a fiber reinforced heat shrinkable backing specifically designed to offer superior penetration and abrasion resistance.  Caseal is also fully designed to withstand common pipe movements.

Installed Caseal

     Caseals have been used for more than two decades now.  In spite of there being thousands of installs per year; I've never heard of a single failure.  Not one. 

Advantages and benefits of the heat shrinkable Caseal (Casing Seal) product:

• Fiberglass reinforced backing provides high mechanical resistance and high recovery capacity.
• 65% shrinkage ratio gives it the ability to conform to high casing/carrier transitions; reducing inventory and logistics costs.
• Caseal resists a wide range of environmental and mechanical forces; putting a reliable moisture proof, extremely tough seal in place.
• Specially formulated sealant ensures a strong bond and tight seal to virtually any substrate.  This sealant maintains its elasticity and sealing characteristics over a wide range of temperatures. 
• Sealing adhesive automatically flows and repairs minor mechanical damage.  This is called the self healing effect.   
• Zipper closure system allows for a fast and easy wrap around installation.
• Caseal can be used when casing pipe is not concentric to the carrier pipe.
• No special equipment is required - fast, easy and low cost installation. 

Caseal Product Thickness

     Caseal is a thick product.  The backing when fully and freely recovered would be 3.25mm thick.  The adhesive as supplyed is 1.2mm thick -- and would be significantly thicker than that with a full recovery.  Beyond that, the backing is radiation cross linked which gives it superior abrasion resistance even beyond what you would see in a 3.25mm thick product.

Just a few of the available sizes for Caseal

     Caseals can be manufactured for any casing size.  There is virtually no limit.  Here we see just a few examples.

• A casing seal for a 50" casing could shrink all the way down to a 20" carrier.
• A casing seal for a 44" casing could shrink all the way down to an 18" carrier.
• A casing seal for a 40" casing could shrink down to a 16" carrier.
• A casing seal for a 20" casing could shrink down to a 10" carrier.

     There is an awful lot of shrink in these things.  Please feel free to call me to discuss your specific casing seal needs.  We can help.  We are reliable.  We know what we are talking out.  A pretty good combination.

Steve Simpson - 936/321-3333
steve@jsicoatings.com

Casing Seals

Sealing a Casing Pipe with a Casing Seal (Caseal)

Casing Seal (CASEAL) used to prevent water from entering and corroding the interior of the casing.

     Per DOT regulations, anytime a casing pipe and a carrier pipe are used, something must be used to seal that casing pipe.  If water and or debris is freely able to creep into a casing pipe, that casing pipe is likely to begin corroding from the inside out in a remarkable short period of time.  If that happens, the corroded casing can collapse onto the carrier, causing damage, or it can simply cease to serve its initial function.  If it is not serving its initial function, the carrier pipe can quickly become damaged by vibrations and movements caused by the road above.  That isn't good.  It is for exactly this reason that Caseal has been one of the leading solutions to casing pipe sealing in the oil, gas and water pipelines markets. 

    Caseal is a multi layer sealing system.  CS (Caseal / Casing Seal) incorporates a visco elastic mastic sealant and a multi layer fiber reinforced, radiation crosslinked polyethylene backing.  This sheet material is manufactured into a wrap around sleeve with a very high shrink ratio specially designed for casing / service pipe sealing.  The adhesive assures an excellent bond between the sleeve and the bare steel or factory applied pipeline anti corrosion coating. 

     The fiber mesh woven into the backing gives the Caseal / Casing Seal a high mechanical resistance as well as a high recovery capacity.  A zipper closing system allows a simple and fast installation.  This product is installed using a standard gas torch.  After pipe surface preparation and preheating, the sleeve is zipper closed, forming a tube, and shrunk in place tightly fitting around the substrate.  During shrink sleeve recovery, the adhesive softens and flows to form a tight bond.  The bond strength builds up during cool down and is fully retained after completion of the job. 

    Features and Benefits:
- Fiberglas reinforced backing provides high mechanical resistance and high recovery capacity. 
- 65% shrink ration conforms to high transitions and reduces inventory and logistics costs.
- Resists a wide range of environmental and mechanical forces.  Reliable moisture proof seal and extremely tough. 
- Specially formulated sealant ensures a strong bond and tight seal to virtually any substrate.  Maintains its elasticity and sealing characteristics over a wide temperature range.
- Sealing adhesive automatically flows and repairs minor mechanical damages.  Self healing effect.
- Zipper closure system allows a simple and fast installation.
- Usable also when service pipe is not concentric with the casing.  Caseal is highly versatile.
- No special equipment required.  Makes installation fast and easy and keeps installation low.

    Approved for use on pipelines operating at or below ambient temperatures, Caseal is compatible with all commonly used factory applied pipeline coatings.  In addition, it can be installed over a wire brushed pipe surface (free from all oils and loose material).   

     When fully recovered, Caseal would have a backing thickness of 3.25mm.  This is pretty thick; particularly considering that the fiber mesh is woven between dual layers of radiation crosslinked polyolefin. 

    Installation video can be found here:

How do you seal an un-centered carrie pipe?

Sealing Between Casing and Carrier when Carrier Not Centered

     There are several products out there today that can be installed to seal up the space between a casing and a carrier pipe.  Why is this done?  First and foremost, because the DoT requires that it is done!  Beyond that though, the idea that water and air (and who knows what else) might get into a casing pipe and sit there rusting it away for who knows how long in who knows how short of an amount of time is a terrifying one.  A rusted out casing pipe, collapsing onto a coated carrier pipe -- and all of that underneath some kind of a road or highway that will experience significant vibrations and movements would be an absolute recipe for disaster.

Caseal - quick, easy and reliable method for sealing a casing

     So what are your options?  There are really two different technological options that I am aware of (sure there are others; but only two worth mentioning in my opinion). 

     First:  Mechanical seals.  These are generally put together using different links of rubber and plastic type materials to properly fill the space around the casing and act as a centering mechanism.  These are put together mechanically.  One downside to this technology, when a carrier pipe is not centered within the casing for some reason - these types of systems will not work. 

     Second:  Heat Shrinkable.  These are generally wrapped around the casing/carrier intersection and utilize an aggressive mastic sealant to bond to both the casing pipe and the carrier pipe; forming a water proof barrier that will prevent any type of substance from getting into that casing pipe.  With a wide range of use options, Caseal can be installed quickly and easily on just about any casing/carrier diameter combination.  One downside:  the Caseal does not act AS a spacer or centering device.  The Caseal only seals.

     Most of the time, what I see is contractors and end users deciding to actually install both products as a sort of belt and suspenders system.  Why?  Because the minimal cost associated with using both products is peanuts when considering what the cost would be to deal with a heavily damaged casing pipe down the road.  Pay just a few extra dollars today....or pay tens of thousands of dollars in the years ahead?  Seems like an obvious choice!

What is the Use Range on Casing Seals?

Caseal Use Range

     Caseals:  Heat shrinkable seals designed to prevent water ingress into casing pipe by sealing to the carrier and the casing and preventing anything from getting inside.

     Flangeseals:  Heat shrinkable seals designed to encapsulate and seal a flange to prevent corrosion while retaining the ability to re-enter that flange as necessary.

     Both of these products are manufactured with tremendous shrink ratios built into them.  That makes sense right?  The OD of a flange is quite a lot larger, generally, than the OD of the pipeline.  Likewise, the OD of a casing pipe is often significantly larger than the OD of the carrier pipe running through it.  Both of those applications require a product that shrinks a lot; otherwise it will be impossible to achieve a seal!

     Very often we hear from a customer who has some of the products in stock.  Another advantage of their high shrink ratio is that they are multi functional.  A single size of Caseal might be capable of covering several different casing/carrier pipe configurations.  The same is true of our Flangeseal.  In this article I will share the use range for our Caseal (Casing Seal) product.  

CS 4500 - Supplied 5.5" - will shrink to 2.08"

CS 6625 - Supplied 7.625" - will shrink to 2.78"

CS 8625 - Supplied 9.625" - will shrink to 3.44"

CS 10750 - Supplied 11.75" - will shrink to 4.13"

CS 12750 - Supplied 14.25" - will shrink to 4.97"

CS 14000 - Supplied 15.5" - will shrink to 5.39"

CS 16000 - Supplied 17.5" - will shrink to 6.05"

CS 18000 - Supplied 19.5" - will shrink to 6.70"

CS 20000 - Supplied 21.5" - will shrink to 7.36"

CS 22000 - Supplied 24" - will shrink to 8.18"

CS 24000 - Supplied 26" - will shrink to 8.86"

CS 26000 - Supplied 28" - will shrink to 9.52"

CS 28000 - Supplied 30" - will shrink to 10.17"

CS 30000 - Supplied 32" - will shrink to 10.83"

CS 32000 - Supplied 34.5" - will shrink to 11.64"

CS 34000 - Supplied 36.5" - will shrink to 12.33"

CS 36000 - Supplied 38.5" - will shrink to 12.96"

CS 38000 - Supplied 40.5" - will shrink to 13.64"

CS 40000 - Supplied 42.5" - will shrink to 14.30"

CS 42000 - Supplied 44.5" - will shrink to 14.95"

CS 44000 - Supplied 47" - will shrink to 15.77"

CS 46000 - Supplied 49" - will shrink to 16.43"

CS 48000 - Supplied 51" - will shrink to 17.11"

 

Casing Seal / Flange Seal / CCS Weave

How Do I Seal Up A Casing?

     This post could also address:  How do I seal up (ie prevent corrosion) on a flange?  Both use the same material type in a different configuration.  Whether sealing a casing or a flange, a very simple way is the Covalence (formerly Raychem) Caseal or Flangeseal:

Caseal (Casing Seal)

Flangeseal

     Both of these materials are manufactured using the CCS Weave material.  This material is a high expansion, multi layer, fiber reinforced, highly aggressive mastic sealant heat shrinkable sleeve systems.  Held together using both a mechanical closure system and a heat resistant closure system (to protect the mechanical closure system), these products have been successfully used for many years.

     The fiber reinforcement gives these products fantastic penetration resistance, abrasion resistance and tear resistance.  In addition, the high expansion allows these products to be used on multiple casing and flange configurations with ease.  These shrink sleeves shrink almost 65% (when allowed to by the substrate).  To look specifically at that shrink range:

CS 4500 (for a 4.5" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 5.5" and will shrink and seal down to a 2.375" carrier. 
CS 6625 (for a 6.625" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 7.625" and will shrink and seal down to a 3.5" carrier.  
CS 8625 (for an 8.625" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 9.625" and will shrink and seal down to a 4.0" carrier.  
CS 10750 (for a 10.75" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 11.75" and will shrink and seal down to a 5.563" carrier.  
CS 12750 (for a 12.75" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 14.25" and will shrink and seal down to a 6.625" carrier.
CS 14000 (for a 14" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 15.50" and will shrink and seal down to a 6.625" carrier.
CS 16000 (for a 16" casing pipe) is supplied with an OD of 17.50" and will shrink and seal down to a 8.625" carrier.

     This continues on up to actually sealing between a 48" casing pipe and a 30" carrier pipe.  Please be aware, this product is for sealing...it is not a centralizer or stablizer.