Double block and bleed valves offer efficient fluid control

Fluid control systems are highly efficient valves and tubings which can help regulate product flow in various industries. Use of stainless steel components ensures resistance to corrosion and longer life.

From valves to couplings, a number of products are available from major sealing manufacturers. A single industry may utilize several different products.

In some cases, two or more different valves may be needed at a single point. When these are block and bleed valves, you can replace them with a single valve- the double block and bleed valve.

Let’s learn a bit more about these valves.

What are double block and bleed valves?

By definition, it is a single valve which has two seating surfaces. In a closed position, these offer a seal against pressure applied from the two different ends of the valve. This is done by venting or bleeding the cavity present between the seating surfaces.

In essence, these valves are used to replace traditional mechanism of generating a double block and bleed configuration within the pipeline. These are used for critical applications, especially those where high pressure valves are required. Industrial applications include chemical seal isolation, instrument drain and gauge isolation.

Why use these valves?

These valves have evolved to replace bolting of individual valves together to achieve dual isolation. These assemblies ensure greater isolation as well as savings in terms of space, weight and installations.

As much as 60% and 70% savings for weight and installation times, respectively, are possible. The best savings are, however, in leak path reductions to atmosphere, decreasing risk of potential hazards.

The double block and bleed DBB series particularly works as three separate valves – one drain and two isolation valves. Hence, these can offer savings on the higher side of the range promised by such manifolds, particularly for space and weight.

This helps free up space for other instrumentation, making the configuration of the overall system more efficient.

Where to buy DBB valves from?

While there are several manufacturers who can provide you these valves, we recommend choosing the products which are factory tested. SealExcel ensure each of these valves is tested and offers fire safe designs. This makes them a preferred choice for industrial use.

These valves are used for multiple applications, including instrument isolation, gauge isolation, instrument drain, chemical injection connection, sample connection, chemical seal instrument isolation, piping / instrument interface, direct mounting of instruments and remote mounting of instruments.

In addition to these valves, the company also offers check, bleed and purge valves for various applications.

Ball valves are the choice on/off valves

Industrial settings require a number of instruments to function together in order to achieve a set target. Such

equipment has various components, carefully selected to ensure optimum function.

When it comes to selecting one or more valves for instrumentation, the choices may overwhelm you. Valves are usually designed for particular uses, most commonly being the on and off application.

Each valve is essentially different from the other, created with a specific style, size and material. Before you choose the valve, ask yourself what you need it for.

If it’s an on-off valve, we have a very good suggestion—Ball Valves!

The ideal on-off valve

On-off control valves are the most basic and therefore, frequently used valves in most industries. These valves function to start and shut off fluid flow, thereby regulating the system.

Ball valves are the most common valves used for this purpose. Others include gate, diaphragm and bellows valves.

Ball valves—function and types

These valves are designed for controlling fluid flow. A quarter turn actuation helps start or stop the fluid flow

by positioning a metallic ball that blocks the straight flow path.

This metallic ball has a large hole in its center. There are two different arrangements that can be attained by the ball to control flow.

In order to allow fluid to flow, the ball is positioned in a way that the hole is aligned with the flow path. In contrast, if it is turned in a perpendicular manner with respect to the path of flow.

This simple mechanism allows for quick shut on and off, making ball valves an ideal choice for quick, high capacity flow control.

Furthermore, the position of the handle present as part of the design is an indication of its arrangement. It can indicate if the valve is on or off. This offers higher security with sensitive applications.

Ball valves are also easy to lock out and tag for multiple reasons. These are practical and economical for almost every industry which needs a shut-on and off valve. These come in different sizes, mostly ranging from ¼ to 2 inches.

Where to buy them from?

Ideally, you should opt for a valve and pipe fitting supplier which deals with a comprehensive range of products. For instance, SealExcel offers various flow control regulators, including ball and needle valves.

The company supplies various models of standard ball valves as well as especially designed high pressure valves and two/ three way ball valves.

Tips for improving pneumatics’ energy efficiency

Industrial pneumatics can be optimized to reduce the overall energy consumption of your plant. Industrial equipment which generate or utilizes compressed air can be made more energy efficient in a number of ways.

Adopting a few cost cutting strategies can lower your energy bills. This is a significant amount as over half of the total ownership costs of pneumatics are made up of these energy bills.

A constructive evaluation of these applications can thus pay off in both short and long term. Here are three tips to help you start on the savings:

Use the properly sized components

Right sizing is necessary to reduce energy consumption. However, to keep a ‘safety margin’, companies often use oversized components.

This would have been the right thing to do if energy bills were of little to no concerns. Since that is not the case, designs have to be made keeping the benefit versus cost ratio in mind.

Oversizing not only increases air consumption but larger equipment is also fairly expensive. Furthermore, their weight is considerably more which could be a problem if space is an issue or mounting space is needed.

Effective regulation

Pneumatic systems may waste energy if they’re supplying higher pressure than needed by an actuator.

In several applications, for example, the cylinders either only pushes or pulls a load. These cylinders often don’t perform both actions. However, same pressures are set for both retracting and extending strokes, making the process energy inefficient.

Using pressure regulators, you can supply the right pressure and reduce energy consumption by as much as 25%.

Decentralized air supply

Centralized valves require longer air lines which can prove to be cumbersome and energy inefficient. Several manufacturers offer decentralized valves which optimize pneumatic functions. These valves can be directly mounted on the cylinders without the use of hose connectors.

This reduces loss of energy in long lines running to the pneumatic drive. These valve/actuator combinations can decrease as much as 50% of the tubing and 35% of the energy consumption.

Such systems also provide faster response times and comparatively higher cycle frequencies.

Potential savings

Overall machine design and the use of different components affect the potential savings.

For instance, compact designs with correctly sized components can improve air consumption, helping to reduce as much as 15% energy.

Use of pressure regulators for supplying just the right amount of pressure can decrease almost 25% of energy costs. Finally, 35% of costs can be saved by decentralizing the system.

If you’re interested in saving energy and making your pneumatic applications more energy efficient, make sure you use the best quality products.

Check out SealExcel for energy efficient solutions. They offer stainless steel pipe fittings, and check valves, ball valves, purge valves and several other components.

Basics of quick-acting couplings

Quick-acting couplings serve as fast and convenient methods for repeatedly connecting as well as disconnecting fluid lines.

If your particular applications require a tube or a hose to be connected and disconnected often (more than once a week), then opting for quick-acting couplings is a better option. These couplings let you improve productivity through a rather simple design.

Their widespread use has helped yield precisely engineered products, optimized for specific fluid applications. Still several designs for general industrial applications are available too.

Let’s review a few basics to learn more about these couplings.

Configuration of quick-acting couplings

Irrespective of the manufacturer, quick-acting couplings usually have a few common features. All couplings have two constituent parts; a plug and a socket.

These two parts are connected together, sealing and locking the joint sufficiently. This helps contain the internal pressures as well as resist tensile forces which may be pulling the joint apart.

These two parts can be easily disconnected, without needing to use any tools. The locking mechanism can simply be disengaged, separating the two parts.

Applications of quick-acting couplings

These couplings are more popular in applications where hoses are needed to be connected and disconnected a number of times. They become more critical as the productivity of associated machines increase.

One of the most important applications is in assembly workstations. Workers are required to rapidly switch between impact ranch, drill and riveter. Using quick-acting couplings, the tool changing takes merely seconds.

Without these couplings, a separate air line will be needed for each individual tool. This mass of various tools and line will clutter up the workstation, reducing the productivity of that application.

Another important application is on hydraulic test stands. These couplings function to eliminate bottlenecks, reducing the time needed for completing the testing of each assembly. The assembly is ready to be tested with only a simple push/pull mechanism.

Testing times would significantly increase if technicians were required to tap into systems with fittings and a wrench for every test procedure.

Various coupling types

A number of coupling types are manufactured to be used for different applications. Some of the most popular couplings for fluid applications include ball-lock, roller-lock, pin-lock, flat-face,
bayonet, ring-lock, cam-lock, multi-tube couplings.

If you’re looking for a reliable quick-coupling manufacturer, we recommend SealExcel. The company provides quick-connect couplings for both hydraulic and pneumatic applications. In addition, they also offer stainless pipe fittings and check valves for various applications.