Oil platform valves: types, technologies, materials
Every oil and gas engineer should know about almost 6 type of valves and 2 body material. And a manager as well
Choosing oil platform valves depends on the study of the whole pipe system. Pressure seal valves, butterfly valves, check valves, globe valves… each piece into its place. Or, rather, each valve where it can exerts the right control. So, let us have a look on the most commonly used oil and gas valves and on their reason for being and working on an oil platform system.
Careful: types of valves and kind of body materials. The difference between forged valves and cast valves, and between bronze valves and steel valves is likewise important to select the most suitable products to each part of an oil platform system.
Gate valves
They are the most used valves in piping and pipeline applications. And are primarily designed to start or stop a fluid flow, not to regulate it. Like a gate, precisely: that means we mostly keep gate valves either fully closed or fully open. That is why they are not recommended as throttling valves.
Globe valves
The globe valve is now probably the most common type in use. This kind of valve is a linear motion one and also designed for throttling applications: then to regulate flows too. So, perfect and performing for transporting fuel oil, turbine lube oil systems and also for cooling water systems.
Check valves
As their name announce, between different types of oil platform valves, check valves best fit when oil flow control is required. And are obviously necessary to prevent leakage or back flow.
Ball valves
A ball valve is a quarter-turn rotational motion valve and has a wide range of applications. It can indeed manage and control all kinds of fluids, and it also finds application in managing with steam and condensate.
Butterfly valves
A quite versatile valve. Due to its quarter-turn rotational motion, a butterfly valve is easy and fast to open or closed to stop, start or regulate a flow. A qualifying feature is that tbutterfly valves can cope with low-pressure drop and high-pressure recovery.
DIN and ANSI valves
The Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) –or the German Institute for Standardization– and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) are both in charge to coordinate and accreditate industry product standards. The American is a non-profit organization and the German one is a government organization. DIN is therefore the certification –the standard– requiered to products and valves intended for the European market. ANSI valves and ANSI products are just suitable for american oil platforms or industries. Essentially, DIN standards use metric measurements to measure valves, flange sizes and pressure (mm and bar). ANSI standards use inches and psi.
Forged valves
This type of valves is manufactured by forging –shaping– steel while it is in its solid form. Two really important benefits are the low quantity of wasted material and the resistance: according to their reputation for being strong, forged valves are mostly used for small bore or high-pressure piping applications.
Cast valves
To cast valves means to form them from liquid metal. Casting valves gives a good cost-effective solution both for manifactures and customers. Casting allows to:
- create complex shape valves, sizes and patterns
- use different types of metal, if needed
- reduce labor and machining costs
Bronze valves
An interesting look has to be given to bronze valves. Bronze has indeed a good resistance to wear and corrosion and obviously a good machinability. It is therefore suitable to realize valves intended for low and medium pressure service.
We can rigthly talk about an oil platform valves world. A world as specific as adaptable to the requirements of the partners.
Keep in touch
Please, feel free to check our distributor page in order to che more details of DEI.
DEI is an official Bonney Forge distributor and we have two social network pages: Facebook Official Fan Page and Linkedin profile too.