Victaulic introduces industry’s first in-line maintenance knife gate valve
Victaulic, a manufacturer of mechanical pipe-joining systems, has launched the Series 795 knife gate valve, the industry's first in-line maintenance knife gate valve.
The new valve simplifies installation and maintenance, reduces downtime, and improves worker safety, Victaulic says.
The Series 795 knife gate valve is well-suited for fluid lines containing solids or abrasive materials common in wastewater treatment, hydroelectric power generation, mining, and other industrial settings with applications such as lines for slurry and tailings or cyclones.
It alleviates a longstanding industry pain point, namely the time-consuming, labour-intensive process of removing the entire valve from the pipeline to facilitate maintenance, rebuilding, and repair.
The new valve’s design can reduce maintenance downtime by up to 95% and generate up to 60% savings in annual maintenance costs.
Victaulic developed advanced technology that encloses all wear parts into a single seat cartridge kit, which greatly simplifies maintenance.
The design allows the valve to remain installed through ongoing maintenance cycles, and a Montana, US, mining company testing the Series 795 saw maintenance that once required hours of downtime reduced to minutes, Victaulic reports.
The new valve improves worker safety, because only one component has to be replaced instead of removing the entire valve from the pipeline.
This first-of-its-kind design eliminates the need for rigging with heavy chains and pulleys swinging over the heads of maintenance crews.
“After we installed the new valve, it has run like a dream,” said Amy French, senior maintenance planner at Golden Sunlight Mining in Montana.
“We have been so impressed with this unit we are looking at purchasing additional valves.”
The Victaulic Series 795 knife gate valve joins either grooved end carbon steel or plain end HDPE pipe.
It is available in sizes 3-12” (80-300mm) and rated to 10 bar.
Additional features include installation-ready integrated coupling design, a self-clearing seat that eliminates debris pushing to the floor, unidirectional polyurethane seat that is highly resistant to abrasive wear, flush port in lower housing for easy valve cleaning, and anti-rotation screws for full 360° installation positioning.
