VALVES – LET’S KNOW THE BASICS!

1. VALVES – LET’S KNOW THE BASICS!

2. You might not notice pipes, but they’re transporting vast amounts of fluid (liquid and gas) around the world quietly and efficiently, day in and day out. • To work efficiently, most leading valve manufacturers opine that the pipes need a way of regulating how much fluid can pass through them; they also need a way of switching the flow off completely. • That’s the job that valves do: valves are like mechanical switches that can turn pipes on and off or raise or lower the amount of fluid flowing through them. Let’s take a closer look at how they work!

3. What are valves? • A valve is a mechanical device that blocks a pipe either partially or completely to change the amount of fluid that passes through it. Valves regulate gases as well as liquids. • Valves are often used to contain dangerous liquids or gases maybe toxic chemicals, flammable petroleum, high-pressure steam, or compressed air that mustn’t be allowed to escape under any circumstances.

4. How are valves made? • Valves are usually made of metal or plastic and they have several different parts. The outer part is called the seat and it often has a solid metal outer casing and a soft inner rubber or plastic seal so the valve makes a closure that’s absolutely tight. • The inner part of the valve, which opens and closes, is called the body and fits into the seat when the valve is closed. There’s also some form of mechanism for opening and closing the valve either a manual lever or wheel (as in a faucet or a stop cock) or an automated mechanism (as in a car engine or steam engine).

5. According to a leading valve supplier, it’s often critically important for valves that are switched off to allow absolutely no escape of liquid or gas through a pipe to avoid accidents, explosions, pollution, or the loss of valuable chemicals (even a dripping faucet can be expensive if your water is metered). That is why the seal on a valve needs to be perfectly secure and a valve that’s turned off must be tightly closed.

6. Choosing the right material: • Choosing materials for valves isn’t just a matter of thinking how they’ll function during their lifetime, but what happens to them after that? • Factors that should be considered when selecting a valve based on construction are pressure requirement, connection type, installation orientation, flow volume, flow direction, required level of control, accessibility and type of media.

7. In addition to selecting the right design, it is also imperative to the success of a valve application that a suitable material is selected. You can also check the certificate of valves like UL FM approved Valves, WRAS-approved valves etc. • In addition to the requirements of the intended application, the following valve characteristics need to be critically evaluated before a valve design is selected: dimension and connection type, pressure drop, allowable leakage and coefficient of flow.

8. Types of valves: • The most common ones are the butterfly, plug, gate and globe: • Ball: In a ball valve, a hollowed-out sphere (the ball) sits tightly inside a pipe, completely blocking the fluid flow. When you turn the handle, it makes the ball swivel through ninety degrees, allowing the fluid to flow through the middle of it. • Butterfly: A butterfly valve is a disk that sits in the middle of a pipe and swivels sideways (to admit fluid) or upright (to block the flow completely).

9. Plug: In a plug valve, the flow is blocked by a cone-shaped plug that moves aside when you turn a wheel or handle. • Gate or sluice: Gate valves open and close pipes by lowering metal gates across them. Most valves of this kind are designed to be either fully open or fully closed and may not function properly when they are only part-way open. • Globe: Water faucets (taps) are the examples of globe valves. When you turn the handle, you screw a valve up or down and this allows pressurized water to flow up through a pipe and out through the spout below.

10. Final Words: • There are many valves body and seat materials available today. These have a wide range of characteristics, benefits and limitations. • Fevisa, one of the leading valve stockists in USA, Europe and Dubai, make sure that these considerations, along with the requirements of the application, are ensuring the best materials for a particular application are met through our API approved valves.

11. Further, our Europe origin valves are designed to follow the various industrial standards and customers’ requirements and we are properly known as European Valve Manufacturers. • Our team of designers & engineers can assist you into making the right choice of the kind of valve for your application. Fevisa is ever ready to help you out in the choice of stock valves. • Contact us for selecting the right valve for an application since it is crucial for the success of the application.