Knowing your valve function, the materials that are processed, operating pressure, temperature, specific requirements, size and flow will help insure you are able to specify the correct valve for your application.
YIYUAN contains other products and information you need, so please check it out.
Determine the answers to the following questions:
What industry will this valve be used in? Agricultural & Farming, Energy, Food & Beverage, General Chemical, Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, or Plastics.
What typical materials (media) are being processed? Is the material abrasive, corrosive, light, or heavy? Are there sanitary requirements?
What are the weight considerations? The weight of a valve is especially important for mobile or rotating equipment. High performance and heavy-duty models can weigh four times as much as its regular-duty counterpart. Dust tight, full vacuum, and 1 bar service, is considered to be regular duty service. 90 PSI (6bar) to 150 PSI (10bar) is high performance. An 8-inch manually operated regular duty valve can weigh 55 lbs. (25Kg), versus nearly 200 lbs. (90Kg) for an 8″ high performance model.
What is the valve function? Inlet valve, outlet valve, or pipe inline valve? Learn more about valve function here.
What is the operating pressure range?
What is the operating temperature range? High temperature requirement?
What are the port inlet and outlet sizes?
Mounting: The typical ANSI 150 # and DIN drilling is used as an industry standard for heavy duty and high-performance models. Quick clamps can also be used for applications up to 30PSI (2bar) and port sizes up to 10″. For 1″ to 3″ VB ball valves NPT, Socket weld and Tri-Clamps connections are options.
Some valves will include blind tapped holes, which may be a problem if the valve is mating with existing blind tapped holes. Another option is to choose over-sized flanges, which allows for through holes. For regular duty service valves, ANSI and DIN bolting can be overkill and alternative bolting patterns are available.
Seats: Very abrasive material will tend to dictate using metal seats versus the more commonly used reinforced Teflon seats.
The metal seal will give longer life and can be used at higher temperatures than Teflon but the shut-off sealing is limited to dust tight, ANSI class IV or ANSI class V. Reinforced Teflon can be used up to 450 degrees F (230 C), and provide Class VI shut-off.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of 316 and 316L Valve Balls. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
Service: Dust tight are used for most gravity feed powder applications where the process is not under vacuum or pressure.
O-Ring Material: Silicone O-rings are typical. Viton and Teflon Encapsulated Silicone are used for specific chemical resistance. Most other materials are available on request.
Operators (Actuators): Double acting pneumatic operation is the first choice for reliability, speed, weight, and value. Levers and gear drives are also available. Pneumatic operators are available in double acting or single acting (spring return) fail-safe modes. Spring return actuator are slower, bigger, and heavier.
As with other quarter turn valves; levers, gear drives or chain operators are available. Pneumatic and hydraulic, operators are available in double acting or fail-safe modes. Pneumatic operation should be the first choice for price, reliability, and speed. When handling solids a higher factor of safety is used to calculate seat torque requirements. The factor is typically 1.5 instead of the 1.25 used for liquid and gas valve calculations.
For solids that “set-up” or harden over-sized actuator and specially designed discs that can break through the hardened cake are used. Actuators are typically sized for 80-PSI (5.3 bar) pressure. If the available supply air pressure is dependably higher (100 to 120PSI) or lower (40 to 60 PSI), this will factor in the sizing of the actuator.
For fail-safe operation, spring return actuators are the norm. When a spring return type actuator is used, it is over-sized to compensate for the spring as well as the unseating, run, and seating torque required for valve operation. This can lead to weight and space problems as well as extra cost. An alternate fail-safe option is to use a double acting actuator with a pneumatic accumulator sufficiently sized to close the valve. If there is a loss of pneumatic pressure, a pressure switch activates the accumulator and operates the valve.
Control: Single solenoid (spring return) fail closed on loss of control signal is typical. Fast acting (1 to 5 seconds), quarter turn valves are ideal for flow control of solids. A pneumatic (3 to 15 PSI) or electro-pneumatic (4 to 20 milliampere) positioner can take a signal from a manual adjusted pressure regulator, or from a computer controller. The pneumatic positioner is often used in manually operated filling stations, while the electro-pneumatic positioner is typical for variable discharge which is often used for automatic loss-in-weight systems.
Feedback: Typical for automated valves is two mechanical limit switches indicating fully open and fully closed with a visual beacon indicator.
Electrical Classes: NEMA 4/IP64 wash down and Explosion proof NEMA 7 and 9 are standard. Other classification including IS Intrinsically Safe are offer as engineered options.
Voltage: The Voltage of an electrical appliance indicates the voltage at which the appliance is designed to work. Typical power of a single solenoid is 7.2 Watts. The current consumption at that voltage is displayed on a rating plate attached to the appliance.
Clean in Place (CIP): For automatic cleaning, spray balls or jets should be considered. Another option is the Sani K Valve that can be dismantled by hand for inspection and cleaning. For safety reasons the size of such valves are typically limited to an 8″ port diameter due to the weight of individual components.
CIP ports is a 1-1/2″ ferrule fitted with a Teflon plug, cap and quick clamp. Spray ball is supplied with cap and plug to be used if spray ball is removed between cleaning cycles.
For more information, please visit 304 and 304L Valve Balls.