Difference between revisions of "Air Operated Pinch Valves"

Major components of a pinch valve consists of body and a sleeve. The sleeve will contain the flow media and isolate it from the environment hence reducing contamination to the environment. Generally used for slurries or processes with entrained solids, because the flexible rubber sleeve allows the valve to close droptight around solids—solids that would typically be trapped by the seat or stuck in crevices in globe, diaphragm, butterfly, gate, or ball valves.  The sleeve material can be selected upon the corrosiveness and abrasiveness of the flow media, a suitable synthetic polymer can be chosen. A pinch valve may be the best type of valve for flow control application if the operation temperature is within the limit of the polymer.   

Usually conventional valves such as [[Ball Valves]], [[Butterfly Valves]], [[Piston Valves]] or [[Gate Valves]] tend to fail when in process with the above mentioned aggressive products. The reason is that the valve body seat or the gate/piston of the valves wears out too quickly and the valve can no longer shut off tightly, whereas air operated Pinch Valves work without almost any wear of the elastic rubber hose because the kinetic energy of the solids are absorbed through the extremely high elasticity of the rubber. The rubber mixture is also anti abrasive.