Advantages and Disadvantages of Soft Seal Gate Valve
Overview of Soft Seal Gate Valve:
Soft seal gate valve is a kind of manual valve used to connect pipeline mediums and switches used in hydraulic engineering. The structure of the soft seal gate valve is composed of a valve seat, valve cover, gate, gland, stem, hand wheel, gasket and hexagon bolt. The inside and outside surfaces of the valve channel are sprayed with the process electrostatic powder. After baking in a high temperature furnace, the smoothness of the whole channel and the inner groove of the gate valve is ensured, and the appearance also gives a sense of color vision. gate valve is made for water conservancy.
Types and Applications of Soft Seal Gate Valves:
As a common manual on-off valve in the pipelines, soft seal gate valves are mainly used in waterworks, sewage pipelines, municipal drainage engineering, fire pipeline engineering, as well as non-corrosive liquid and gas industrial pipelines. It can be customized according to the field usage such as rising stem soft seal gate valve, non-rising stem soft seal gate valve, extended stem soft seal gate valve, buried type soft seal gate valve, electric soft seal gate valve, pneumatic soft seal gate valve, etc.
What are the Advantages of Soft Seal Gate Valves
- The advantage of the soft seal gate valves is first of all its cost. Generally, most of the soft-seal gate valve series use ductile iron QT450 as a whole. The cost of the valve body will be much cheaper than that of cast and stainless steel. Compared with the project batch procurement this is quite affordable and at the same time offers quality assurance.
- Next, from the performance characteristics of the soft-sealed gate valve perspective, the gate plate of the soft-sealed gate valve is lined with elastic rubber and the inner part adopts a wedge structure. The top hand wheel mechanism is used to make the screw rod drop to drive the elastic ram to press down, which is sealed with the internal wedge groove. The elastic rubber gate can be stretched and squeezed, thus achieving a good sealing effect. Therefore, the sealing effect of the soft sealing gate valve in the case of water conservancy and some non-corrosive media is obvious.
- Third, for the later maintenance of the soft seal gate valve, the structure design of the soft seal gate valve is simple, clear, and easy to remove and install. When the valve is used for a longer period of time, the elastic gate in the gate valve will be opened and closed frequently and the rubber will lose its elasticity, resulting in lax closing and valve leakage. It is at this moment that the advantages of the structural design of the soft seal gate valves become obvious. The maintenance personnel can directly disassemble and replace the gate without dismantling the entire valve. This in turn saves time and effort by cutting the manpower and resources on site needed for maintenance.
What are the Disadvantages of Soft Seal Gate Valves
- Speaking of the disadvantages of soft seal gate valves, let\’s take a look at it from an objective perspective. The core point of soft seal gate valves is that the soft-seal elastic gate can be extended and contracted and automatically filled. The sealing and air-tightness of the soft-seal gate valve is really good for non-corrosive gases and liquids.
- Since nothing on this world is perfect, there are advantages and disadvantages. The obvious disadvantage of soft-sealed gate valves is that the elastic rubber gate cannot be used continuously at a temperature exceeding 80°C, with hard particles and under corrosiveness. In such cases it will cause elasticity which will further lead to rubber gate being deformed, damaged or corroded. At least, these will result in pipeline leakage. The soft seal gate valve is therefore only suitable for non-corrosive, non-particle, and non-wear media.
Conclusion
As for the advantages and disadvantages of soft-seal gate valves, the main reason is that you must first understand the characteristics of the medium, temperature, pressure, and on-site use when selecting the type. Plus the advantages and disadvantages of the soft-seal gate valve described in the article for comprehensive evaluation, and further in-depth Model selection. This is how many details that are overlooked during the model selection can be avoided and the valve can be used without worries.
