What Are Bulk Valves?
Bulk valves with a pinching rubber sleeve offer a complete solution for regulating and isolating fibrous, corrosive, and abrasive products including suspensions, slurries, dust, pellets, powders, and granulates. They offer the optimum combination of precise control and durability, and require little to no maintenance, as there is no packing or seals to maintain – unlike other valve types such as knife gate valves and butterfly valves. Bulk valves of the pinch type also do not require any expensive actuators. These positive factors indicate an exceptional total cost of ownership for bulk valves.
The accurate flow control of these bulk valves takes place due to a rugged pinch sleeve/hose. The reliable rubber pinch sleeves are available in a variety of different rubber materials to suit any application, and are specified to improve control performance.
Working Principle and Benefits of Bulk Valves
Air operated Bulk Valves have a sleeve that is controlled by air or water being pressurised inside the body casing to enable it to close, shutting off any product flow. Bulk Valves can also be mechanically operated. The mechanical version comprises of one or more pinch bars that are arranged below and above the sleeve horizontally, and two rods that are used for guiding them at the side. These mechanical bulk valves can be equipped with different types of actuators.
The actuator enables the bars to pinch the sleeve in either centrally or horizontally, depending on the nominal size. This effectively seals the product’s flow. Additionally, once the sleeve is open it ensures a 100% opening that gives the full passage of flow for the media passing through. The operating pressure of the valve is based the nominal size and type of valve.
The most prominent benefits of pinch bulk valves include:
- low operating costs
- low maintenance costs
- minimum frictional resistance
- free flow of the bulk product
Another great advantage of these valves is that only one part comes in contact with the medium during the product flow, i.e. the sleeve. Moreover, the sleeve undergoes deformation during the closing processes, which causes incrustations to break away inside the sleeve. Due to this, pinch bulk valves are also considered as the blockage-free valve solution.
To find out more, please visit Types, Advantages & Performance of Bulk Valves with a rubber pinch sleeve to view videos of how they work.
