5.1 This practice determines the room temperature gasket constants Gb and a for initial seating and Gs for operating conditions as related to the tightness behavior of pressurized bolted flanged connections. These constants are used in determining the design bolt load for gasketed bolted joints.

5.2 This practice is suitable for all the types of gaskets and facings as are considered by the ASME Division 1 Code. This includes ASME B16.5 raised facings, nubbin-type facings, O-ring grooves, and a wide variety of gaskets including spiral wound, flat sheet, solid metal, jacketed, and other types of gaskets common to process and power industry pressurized equipment.

5.3 These constants are intended for direct use in determining ASME Code design calculations for bolted flanged joints. An appendix of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code, Section VIII, Division 1 will refer to the gasket constants Gb, a, and Gs produced by this practice. The user and bolted joint designer are cautioned that gasket constants Gb, a, and Gs and any gasket design stresses calculated from these may not be conservative for design stresses below S1 or beyond S13 as indicated in Table 3.

5.4 When required, this practice evaluates both the mechanical and leakage resistance of gaskets to excessive compression to determine their maximum assembly stress, Sc.

5.5 This test procedure is a gasket tightness characterization test and is not considered as a gasket manufacturing quality control test.