An industrial sight glass is a critical part of virtually any type of process equipment because it allows for visual inspection of industrial and pharmaceutical processes. Luminaires are often used in conjunction with an industrial sight glass to illuminate tank and pipe interiors.

In a system made primarily of metal, like a pressure vessel, the weak spots are generally sealing joints and glass. However, an industrial sight glass is a highly engineered product. Although different brands of industrial sight glass might look alike, differences in their specs have tremendous impact on worker safety, sterile processes, and maintenance costs. In industrial applications, sight glasses are often subject to extremes of pressure, temperature, thermal shock, caustics, abrasion, or impact. Choosing the right industrial sight glass depends on taking all of these considerations into account.

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An industrial sight glass failure has the potential to be extremely dangerous. Even minor cracks, scratches or abrasions of the glass can be a source of weakness within the glass, which will most likely lead to failure. A catastrophic failure can cause severe operator injury or death, as well as costly downtime. Typically, the failure of an industrial sight glass on a piece of equipment or within a piping system will halt the whole process until the equipment can be repaired or replaced. Moreover, this failure may lead to scrapping the process media. In the case of a pharmaceutical process, the product loss could cost a manufacturer millions of dollars. Could you afford that kind of loss? (inside voice answering “NO”) We thought so, too.

That said, we would like to invite you to learn more about choosing the right industrial site glass for a particular environment. You can do so by downloading our free white paper, 6 Tips for Critical Sight Glass Applications.