Discover everything you need to know about the ported valve, including their benefits, design, material type, and ideal use, in this comprehensive blog post.
Valves are carefully crafted devices designed to regulate, control, or direct fluid flow within a process or system to define them fundamentally. In most cases, they feature several characteristics that help define their ideal applications.
Whether you’re looking to offer safety within systems piping fluid, control or regulate flow, or anything in between, there will be a few valves to assist the entire process.
The focus of this blog post is on high-quality ported valves. But before then, here are the several functions valves provide, such as:
- Throttling fluid or gas flow rates in a piping system
- Stopping or starting fluid or gas flow based only on the state of the valve
- Controlling the direction of fluid or gas flow in a piping system
- Regulating pressure and fluid or gas flow in a piping system
- Boosting safety via relieving vacuum or pressure within a piping system.
Valves are critical components of any reciprocating compressor because they determine the gas flow throughout the machine. This is why they must always be in excellent health, and any defective valve, if discovered early enough, should always be replaced quickly with a new unit.
What You Should Know About Ported Valves
Some parts of reciprocating compressors utilize a specific type called the ported plate valve. Ported valves play crucial roles in the entire compression process and should never be taken for granted.
Here’s what you need to know about ported plate valves and their remarkable benefits in the entire compression process.
What are Ported Plate Valves?
Ported plate valves share great similarities with concentric ring valves. The only difference between these 2 types of valves is that the rings for ported plate valves are joined together to form a single element.
This gives the ported plate valves two considerable advantages over their counterpart, the concentric ring valves, and that is the following:
- Mechanical damping involving the use of damping plates to easily absorb opening impact is, without doubt, introduced
- The number of plate edges available for impact is significantly minimized.
Coil springs contact ported plate valves directly, effectively eliminating the buttons generally used in concentric ring valves.
Moreover, the flow efficiency of ported plate valves is approximately equivalent to the concentric ring valves. However, the geometry of the sealing elements of ported plate valves is far less flexible compared to that of concentric ring valves.
This is why experts considered ported plate valves as high-speed valves, though they can also be applied – surprisingly and equally – well to low-speed equipment.
Ported plate valves, concentric ring valves, and plate valves are generally not the least expensive or most efficient of valves. It’s just that they are more widely employed or utilized than other types of valves for one primary reason: flexibility.
These valves are efficient since they use plastic or metal plates, including mass damping, and can be created with a few wide plates or numerous narrow plates. This makes them highly effective for a wide range of applications.
Types of Ported Plate Valves
Ported plate valves are available as non-metallic and metallic components and assemblies for compressors. Every ported plate valve is specifically designed to match the operating conditions of your reciprocating compressor.
Here are some of the features of ported plate valves:
Metallic Sealing/Dampening Plates
Metallic sealing, as well as dampening plates, are manufactured from heat-treated, high-quality stainless steel.
Non-Metallic Sealing Component Materials
Non-metallic sealing component materials offer excellent high-temperature tolerances, chemical resistance, and strong impact capacities in various applications.
Ideal Use
Ported plate valves are perfect for medium to high-pressure reciprocating compressors functioning at varying degrees of capacity and incredibly high speed. In addition, they can easily be reconditioned and maintained for long-lasting performance.
Optimization
Ported plate valves come with custom spring designs for every application to efficiently optimize opening and closing times. In addition, they are available with plug-type and finger unloaders.
The Benefits of Ported Plate Valves
Ported plate valves bring several benefits to the table. Here are a few of them, arranged in no particular order:
Distinctive Design
Every ported plate valve in the market has a unique design that enables it to function optimally or carry out specific operations in a compressor. However, the machine would malfunction if the valve fails to connect with other compressor parts or no longer operates as desired.
But when ported plate valves work seamlessly with other components within a compressor, the efficiency of the equipment increases significantly. In addition, high-quality ported plate valves’ distinct designs make them fit snugly on compressors to generate the best results.
Material Type
Compressors support various machines, which calls for using different types of materials. As mentioned briefly earlier, ported plated valves are manufactured from metallic and non-metallic substances.
Metallic ported plate valves are created from stainless steel to achieve the following characteristics:
- Resistance to corrosion
- Durability, i.e., they don’t break down easily
- Shape maintenance, i.e., not flimsy, etc.
On the other hand, ported plate valves made from non-metallic materials meet some specifications, such as:
- Resistance to chemicals
- Ability to withstand strong impact
- High-temperature tolerance, etc.
Therefore, ensure you understand the type of ported plate valve material required for your own compressor. This is crucial in order to prevent equipment malfunction or breakdown that may result in considerable downtime and lost revenue or time.
Variety
Compressors are used for a wide range of industrial operations. Therefore, it is quite understandable that quality ported plate valves would be available in different varieties, each designed to meet the specifications of unique industrial operations.
This is why it is always crucial to have these specifics in mind whenever you are in the market for quality ported plate valves for your reciprocating compressor. Purchasing and using ill-fitting ported plate valves for your compressor will result in your equipment malfunctioning.
Conclusion
Valves are vital components that play several significant roles in reciprocating compressors. Without them, these powerful machines will be practically useless, as nothing will regulate, control, direct, or re-direct fluid or gas flow through the reciprocating compressor.
Ported plate valves are one of the most essential components in reciprocating compressors. However, some ported plate valves are designed for specific products, while others are ideal for general use.
Therefore, it is crucial always to keep these benefits and characteristics in mind the next time you’re shopping for ported plate valves for your reciprocating compressor.