Guide to Different Types of Sanitary Fittings

In hygienic processing, wrong fittings can result in potential regulatory nightmare, besides compromising product integrity. Selecting the right sanitary fittings will make your factory navigate through the dynamic compliance requirements, especially if you are in the food and pharmaceutical industry.

In this guide, we will explore different types of fittings you can incorporate in your production system for high purity product handling.

What are Sanitary Fittings?

Sanitary fittings are specially engineered pipe connections made from 316L or 304 stainless steel. Unlike other standard fittings, the sanitary designs must comply with strict safety standards like ASME BPE, 3-A sanitary, and USP Class VI.

They are essential for joining, diverting, and regulating the flow of fluids while maintaining high standards of hygiene in the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries.

Types of Sanitary Fittings

When it comes to choosing these fittings, there are a wide range of options. Broadly, we can classify these fittings by connection method and function.

Let’s explore each category.

By Connection Method

· Tri-clamp Fittings

Tri-clamp fittings are the most popular types of sanitary fittings. They use a clamp, ferrules, and a gasket to create a leak-proof seal between two pipes. In most cases, tri-clamp sanitary fittings are engineered for frequent disassembly and cleaning applications.

· Sanitary Threaded Fittings

These leak-proof connections have sanitary threaded fittings to provide a reliable sealant in low-pressure dairy, food processing, and clean utility pipeline systems.

Among the most common standards in the category are the DIN 11851, SMS 1145 and BS 4825.

· Sanitary Flange Connections

Use sanitary flange connections between pipes of large diameters. Here, the bolted flat-face design offers a sound and inspectable seal that can be used with high-pressure and high-temperature sanitary piping.

· Sanitary Quick-disconnect Fittings

The sanitary quick-disconnect fittings offer the benefits of tool-free coupling and decoupling, aiding a quick changeover in processing lines with minimal contamination and reduced downtime.

· Weld Fitting

Weld fittings not only connect pipes permanently, but they also provide walls which are smooth, and crevice-free. This unique design eliminate harborage for bacteria, satisfying the strictest hygienic requirements in your processing systems.

By Function

For Changing Flow Direction

• Elbow

Connect the elbow fittings to allow the fluid line to flow at an angle of 45 or 90 degrees.

These create a smooth change of direction, which minimizes turbulence and maintains hygienic integrity to the entire piping network.

Change Size

• Eccentric Reducers

Attach eccentric reducers when fitting pipes of varying diameters with one side flat. This prevents the formation of an air pocket and introduce a transversal side drain to completely clear the horizontal sanitary pipeline.

Terminate Flow

• Cap

To completely close the line and stop the flow, use caps at the ends of the pipes. By doing so, it will prevent contamination of open pipe ends during cleaning cycles, system shut-down, or equipment modification procedures.

• Blind Ferrule

Use blind ferrules and tri-clamp assemblies to seal off ports or cut off portions of your pipeline. Through this assembly, it will not leave behind any permanent changes that can cause complete hygienic compliance loss with the system.

• Plug

Simply plug it into fittings to seal off any unused ports or openings, providing a simple and reliable way to seal a system and retain its pressure and hygiene.

Fitting for Branching

• Tee

Fix tee fittings to divide or unite flow at a 90-degree branch. By doing so, you will be able to allocate products, cleaning solutions, or utilities efficiently throughout your sanitary processing network.

• Wye

When it comes to Wye fittings, they provide angled branch connections that minimize turbulence and allow flow splitting in a less turbulent. They are better than standard tees, especially when deployed in gravity-fed or low-pressure sanitary systems.

• Cross

Utilize cross fittings in complex sanitary processing and instrumentation systems in their distribution manifolds to split a flow in four directions from one junction point.

For Connection

• Coupling

The technique joins two sections of the same diameter pipes to create a clean internal bore with a smooth and mechanical bond that assembles and disassembles easily during sanitization.

• Union

With union fittings, they create easily separable joints without rotating the pipe, providing convenient access for inspection, maintenance, and cleaning of the pipe in tight or difficult-to-access sanitary systems.

• Adapter

The adapters connect components with different end types or standards to complete the incompatible fittings. Additionally, it also allows you to easily connect new equipment to your existing sanitary pipeline systems.

Flow Control

• Sanitary Valves

Sanitary valves are available in Butterfly, ball, diaphragm, and mix-proof designs. They not only to regulate and control fluid flow but also isolate equipment for sampling, cleaning, and maintenance.

Factors to Consider when Choosing Sanitary Fittings

When selecting the appropriate sanitary fittings, you need to consider critical factors such as:

· Hygienic Design

The most important consideration is that fittings should have crevice-free internal surfaces and no dead legs.

This is because hygienic design is the direct factor that determines the effectiveness of your system in terms of providing successful CIP and SIP cleaning results.

· Application Requirements

When picking sanitary fittings, prioritize your needs based on your target market. You should consider the type of fluid, flow rate, pressure, and whether your system contains food, pharmaceutical, or biotech products.

· Pressure Rating

When selecting sanitary fittings, understanding the pressure requirement helps minimize failure, leakage, and high contamination cases.

Ensure that the fittings you select have a pressure rating that matches your operating system conditions.

· Temperature

In the domain of sanitary fittings, you require fittings that can withstand the process temperatures, such as steam sterilization at 121 °C or higher. Under these extreme temperatures, they must provide dimensional stability and seal integrity during repeated thermal cycling within your system.

· Gasket Connection

The choice of gasket connection depends fully on your fluid compatibility needs.

You are advised to choose gaskets manufactured from EPDM, silicone, or PTFE. This is because the gasket material directly influences the seal performance, life cycle, and adherence to hygienic standards.

· Surface Roughness Finish

The internal surface roughness RA 0.8 um or better is required because a less rough finish decreases adhesion of microbes and facilitates easier cleaning of your fittings at regular CIP intervals.

· Type of Material

Choose 316L stainless steel for corrosion resistance, durability, and compatibility with the common cleaning agents in hygienic processing environments.

· Standards and Regulations

These guarantee that sanitary fittings meet required standards before purchase.

Look for applicable industry standards, such as 3-A Sanitary Standards for dairy, USP for pharmaceutical materials, DIN 11864 for European applications, and ASME BPE for biopharma systems.

FAQs

1. Which industries use sanitary fittings? 

Industries that prioritize hygiene standards include the food and beverage industry, pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology industry, dairy industry, cosmetics industry, and chemical processing industry.

Sanitary fittings have a smooth, corrosion-resistant design for easy cleaning and minimal contamination.

2. What is the recommended surface roughness of sanitary fittings?

Ra 0.8 um or less is the recommended internal surface roughness for fittings. They are mostly employed in ASME BPE and 3-A standards to strictly reduce microbial adhesion and promote cleanability.

3. Why is sweep factor critical in sanitary fittings?

The elbows and bends require a sufficient sweep radius to maintain fluid stagnation, pressure drop, and full drainage and cleaning in your hygienic system.

4. What is the recommended finish for sanitary connections? 

You are to specify a mechanical or electropolished finish of 0.5 to 0.8 um, which is both ASME BPE and 3-A standards, and is also cleanable and corrosion-resistant in service.

5. What is the difference between tri-clamp fittings and weld fittings?

6. Are sanitary fittings cleanable? 

Yes, sanitary fittings can be cleaned effectively by the CIP or SIP process.

Although you must select fittings that have smooth, internal bores, no crevices, and are materials compatible with your cleaning agents.

7. How do you size the sanitary fittings? 

You select a sanitary fitting according to the size of your pipe outside, the flow rate, pressure needs, and the fluid viscosity, using such standards as ASME BPE or ISO 2037 as a guide to the proper choice of dimension.

Partner with OMSS

With over 12 years of manufacturing sanitary fittings in China, OMSS has partnered with top food processing and pharmaceutical industries globally. We design and fabricate pipe fittings that meet the strict hygienic standards in the industry.

OMSS has also supported hundreds of small businesses globally through our flexible MOQs and competitive prices – Download our product catalogue now.