Hunt Valve releases new proportional poppet valve for descaling applications
Hunt Valve, a fluid power engineering company specialising in severe-duty valves and components, has released a new proportional poppet valve for descaling applications.
By eliminating the effects of water hammer and system shock, this innovative poppet valve technology promotes safety in the plant and cuts operating costs in half while lasting three to five times longer than traditional poppet valves.
At steel mills, persistent water hammer in high-pressure piping systems often leads to burst pipes, cracked welds, and descale header damage.
Hunt Valve’s proportional poppet descale valve can be programmed to eliminate water hammer in the system.
Typically, the speed is only reduced for the last 10 to 20% of the stroke, just before completely shutting off flow to the descale header, the rate of closure can be fine-turned via the integrated local control interface or programmable logic controller (PLC).
“By replacing all fast-closing poppet valves in the descale system with Hunt Valve’s proportional poppet design and eliminating water hammer, companies save up to $250,000 (€226,000) a year in replacement costs for damaged descale headers and pipes,” said Tim Pulcini, Hunt Valve’s business development representative.
“This helps reduce annual plant operating costs for descale valves and piping by as much as 50% and decreases unexpected downtime.”
To combat the high-velocity fluid flow created by the valve’s slow rate of closure, the proportional poppet descale valve incorporates ceramic seating surfaces that prevent wear from the fluid flow.
The valve’s electromechanical linear actuator avoids the maintenance and reliability issues commonly associated with all types of media-actuated valves, according to Hunt Valve.
Unlike traditional poppet valves that use dirty descale water as a hydraulic media to shift the main valve, the actuator is not a wetted part and is completely isolated from the descale water.
The valve has a pressure rating of 320 bar and is available in sizes DIN 10 to 250 (0.5” to 10” in diameter).
