RS-5001 spiral-wound gasket is made of alternate plies of V-preformed hoop and soft filler that are tightly and spirally wound together. The metal winding around the entire inside and outside circumferences of the gasket is spot welded. Normal practice is to reinforce the inside and outside diameters with several plies of the metal winding without a filler being introduced. According to the need of the mating flange, the gasket is provided with an outer ring, an inner ring or both outer and inner rings.

The outer ring serves as a compression stop, anti-blowout device, which properly centers the gasket on the flange. The inner ring acts as a compression stop and is used to fill the annular space between the flange bore and the gasket inside diameter to minimize turbulence of process fluids and erosion of flange faces.

On rare occasions, applications for spiral-wound gaskets arise where it is necessary to utilize a spiral-wound outer and/or inner ring. The spiral-wound outer or inner rings are used primarily as reinforcement and are chosen instead of a solid metal ring, because of lower costs or because of limited space when the use of a solid metal ring would be prohibited due to the difficulty in fabrication or usage.