The present invention is related to a valve, particular to the valve in which sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member suffer easily damage during their relative sliding contact, and the invention will protect them from abrasive wear or galling caused by frictional heat by means of a structure arranged in sealing surface of the seat ring.
In generally, sealing property between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member is a significant factor to affect leakage of the valve when it is in its fully closed position.
The valve in which the seat ring is made of polymer, known commonly as soft seated valve, has excellent sealing property, and the galling does not occur between the sealing surfaces of its seat ring and closure member as easily as metal seated valve because of low friction coefficient of the polymer. The valve has long enough lifetimes in general service, and is widely used.
For the fluid flowing through the valve at a higher temperature or carrying abrasive particles and/or powders, high temperature and wear resistant metal seated valve with hard facing are usually recommended to be first selected. Hard alloy and the like are normally coated, plated or welded on the surfaces of the seat ring and closure member when the metal seated valve are designed and manufactured. It is well known that the trademarks of mating coating material coated on the surfaces are different each other generally, and their hardened hardness also varies in order to protect the sealing surface of the seat ring and the surface of the closure member against mutual abrasive wear or galling. The mating surface has to be machined precisely, too, and grinded with each other if necessary so as to increase their mutual sealing property. Therefore, not only is the coating material resistance to high temperature, abrasion and corrosion, but it is also possessed of strong bond strength with matrix, furthermore low friction coefficient between the coated surfaces for lower operative torque or thrust of the valve.
In recent years, valve manufacturers in the world have perseveringly been searching for the materials possessing a low-friction coefficient, corrosion resistance, high hardened hardness, abrasive wear resistance and a feature being not apt to be scuffed, such as known from Node, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,813. Even so, abrasive wear or galling occurs frequently between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member of metal seated valve in actual service.
Frictional wear is a microscopic dynamic process occurred in material surface, and a complex process relating to behaviors of many subjects including mechanics, materials science, physics, chemistry and heat transfer science. According to analysis from the standpoint of physics and chemistry, wear occurs in the surfaces of two objects in relative sliding motion, and in a very thin layer of working surface. An important characteristic in the course of wear is that mechanical energy changes into heat energy, and the heating or cooling proceeds at very high velocity.
A lot of tests have shown that the abrasive wear is caused by hardness difference and galling by frictional heat. The real area of contact between mating surfaces of two bodies in relative sliding contact is far less than apparent area of contact, even though they are machined finely. The reason is that any surface has waviness and roughness whatever machining is made, and is seen microscopically as a series of asperities presenting serrated peaks, rather than the flat surface seen macroscopically, therefore the real interface of junctions between two relative sliding surfaces is only at the top of some peaks projected outwards from the surface. The softer peaks having the real interface will be sheared or microploughed by the harder peaks facing them during sliding contact relative to each other with the result that a wear fragment transfers from one surface to the other, and loss of material occurs. Meanwhile instantaneous high temperature caused by compression deformation or break at the interface will heat up the top of the peaks having small volume and tiny thermal capacity to cause their temperature to rise sharply and material of the top to become hardened, softened or phase transition. The instantaneous high temperature has the opportunity of causing the material of the interface to be risen up to melted level if the two surfaces slide quickly and repeatedly over a longer distance against each other under a bigger load, and the environment for dissipating heat around them is not so good, as a result abrasive wear or galling will occur at interface of the junctions between two surfaces.
It is also known that the abrasive wear or galling depends not only on a load exerted on sliding contact surfaces and relative sliding velocity between the two sliding surfaces, but on a distance that a smaller object slides over on a larger object, according to friction law that frictional force is proportion to contact load normal to the surfaces published by Mr. Amontons and Mr. Couloms, and the equation that material wear is proportional to load exerted on the surfaces and a distance sliding over relative to each other given by Mr. Archard.
Mr. Laitinen, et al. introduced a new parameter according to Mr. Archard's equation—lineal contact length (that is the overall sliding distance) affecting galling between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and valve plug member in their WO patent publication No. 02/33299. Assuming static conditions and normal materials, the effect of the lineal contact length on the galling conditions can be determined from equation:
Galling factor=PVLn
In this equation, P is the surface load exerted on the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and plug member, V is the sliding velocity during their relative motion, L is the lineal contact length that is a distance slid over on the sealing surface of the seat ring by a given stationary point in the surface of the plug member from this point contacting a leading edge of the sealing surface of the seat ring to it leaving its trailing edge, and n is an exponent having a value greater than 1.
When the seat ring is sliding on the surface of the plug member relatively, the lineal contact length L along its periphery varies in sliding direction of the plug member, therefore this value has a significant effect on the distribution of the frictional heat on the surface of the plug member, particular on the sealing surface of the seat ring.
The lineal contact length must be as short as possible in order to avoid or mitigate the abrasive wear and galling caused by frictional heat between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and plug member. The embodiment disclosed by Mr. Laitinen, et al in WO patent publication No. 02/33299 describes that the recesses, grooves or concavities slightly staggered relative to each other in the direction of movement of the plug member are arranged on the sealing surfaces of the seat ring (if possible, including the surface of the plug member) in a dense pattern but spaced apart from each other, so that a continuous contact with the valve plug member in the lineal contact length is interrupted and divided into several portions without causing leakage passageways when the valve is in its fully closed position. These recesses, grooves or concavities may provide cooling spaces of dissipating the instantaneous frictional heat, not letting the temperature at the top of the peaks in the frictional surfaces rise over high, thereby reduce the possibility of the abrasive wear and galling between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and plug member. But the effect is unsatisfactory either because the recesses, grooves or concavities are difficult to machine or because the instantaneous high temperature accumulated at the tops cannot be timely dissipated in some cases.
The fluid transported in pipeline become severer than ever with the great headway and rapid development of all kinds of process industries, and operation temperature, opening or closing speed, operational frequency and sealing property requirements of the valve are also higher and higher. Abrasive wear or galling occurs frequently between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member of metal seated valve due to generation of a great deal of frictional heat or difficulty in dissipating it when the valve is used in the higher temperature and the fluid carrying harder and harder particles or powders, even though it is operated in range of suitable temperature. The sealing surface of the seat ring made of polymer will be carbonized by instantaneous high temperature caused by frictional heat in quick opening or closing and frequent operation, with the result that movement of the valve closure member becomes sluggish or is not agile. How to find a solution to the abrasive wear or galling due to instantaneous frictional heat begins to become a topic that valve manufacturers devote much attention to researching.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, particular a structure of the sealing surface of the seat ring which prevents the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and valve closure member from abrasive wear or galling during their relative sliding contact.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, it can avoid or mitigate abrasive wear or galling caused by their relative sliding contact by means of the structure of the sealing surface possessing the features of high efficiency, simplicity, easy processing and low manufacturing cost.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, in which the structure of the sealing surface can dramatically reduce friction coefficient between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during their relative sliding contact, and thus reduce friction force between them.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, in which the structure of the sealing surface can quickly absorb and dissipate part of instantaneous high temperature caused by frictional heat between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during their relative sliding contact.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, in which the structure of the sealing surface can enhance the sealing property of the sealing surfaces between the seat ring and closure member.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, in which the structure of the sealing surface can reduce kinetic energy of particles or powders carried in fluid impinging on the upstream surface of the closure member so as to mitigate erosion of it.
A yet further object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, in which new lubricant or grease needs not to be supplied for the structure of the sealing surface in service up to scheduled maintenance, and a minimum of lubricant or grease is stored in the structure, so its pollution of the fluid in the valve is maximally reduced.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a valve able to reduce damage between the sealing surfaces of the seat ring and closure member during operation of the valve, so that the valve according to the present invention can not only be suitable for the application of the fluid carrying abrasive particles and powders, but also the application in need of quick opening and closing or frequent operation.
The present invention relates to ball valve or any other type of valve in which sealing surface of a seat ring and surface of a closure member are always in relative sliding contact with each other. The invention has attained these objects by means of one or more annular grooves 27 or grooves 36 (but equivalent to part of annular groove 27) which are cut into sealing surface 21 of seat ring 14 around its bore used for storing the lubricant or grease, or annular grooves 27 with two bulkheads 30 inserted into each of them to divide it into two groove 31 and 32, or annular grooves 27 with a corrugated ring 35 set into each of them to divide it into many small spaces 34, so that covered by the surface of closure member 17, the lubricant or grease stored in grooves 31, 34 or 36 would not flow away from them during opening or closing movement of the valve. The ball valve equipped with the structure of the invention will be an example of any other type of valve and be described below in detail.
a and
There are various kinds of valves, in which surface of a closure member of some valves always keep relative sliding contact with part or all of sealing surface of a seat ring during their on-off or regulating operation. The principle and consequence of the sliding contact are same as the description above. For the convenience, embodiments of the present invention are disclosed below in detail combining with the configuration of the ball valve shown in
On the other hand, the lineal contact length varies along the periphery of sealing surface 21 of seat ring 14 in direction of their mutual sliding movement (as horizontal lines shown in
Particles or powders in fluid, which sizes are less than the clearance between face to face valleys belonging to each sliding surface, will enter into it driven by pressure differential of fluid, and they form three-body abrasive wear together with two sealing surfaces. In this case the extrusion force exerted upon junctions of the peaks is much larger and loss of material from the surfaces is much easier. At the same time the friction coefficient between the sealing surfaces becomes very large and causes the instantaneous frictional heat to be risen greatly, the possibility of abrasive wear or galling increase sharply. If the temperature of the fluid itself is high and its heat conduction is not so good, it will be much easier to bring them about abrasive wear or galling.
Referring now to
The lubricant or grease film is also a good endothermal body and heat conductor, the lubricant or grease filled into the valleys around the peaks and having much larger thermal capacity than the peaks will absorb not only the instantaneous high temperature generated by frictional heat between the junctions during their relative sliding contact, but also dissipate the heat not to make the temperature at the interfaces rise to the melted level bring them being locked together.
In addition, the lubricant or grease is a good sealant, too, and can be used for increasing sealing property between the surface of ball closure member 17 and sealing surface 21 of seat ring 14. The lubricant or grease film can prevent the particles and powders carried in fluid from entering the clearance between the valleys. The lubricant or grease film keeps separating sealing surface 21 of seat ring 14 from surface of ball closure member 17 to be free them from direct contact even if the particles or powders had entered the clearance and formed three body abrasion, so that they wound not suffer abrasive wear or galling.
The lubricant or grease film can partially adsorb kinetic energy of the particles or powders impacting vertically on upstream surface of the ball closure member also, and make the particles or powders impacting on it at a sloping angle slide across it due to low frictional coefficient and not stagnated on impacted point of the surface, thus the kinetic energy converted into the energy digging surface material of the ball closure member is reduced as much as possible during impingement.
In the embodiment described above, the area on the right side of the sealing surface of seat ring 14 between upper and lower two horizontal lines 22 will miss sliding contact with the surface of ball closure member 17 and grooves 32 located in the area is not covered by the surface of ball closure member 17 during on-off or regulating movement of the valve, except in fully open or closed position. Thus, not only the lubricant or grease stored in grooves 32 on the right side will escape, but also the lubricant or grease in the other grooves 31 on the left side will do through the opened grooves 32 in a short time, so that the valve will be damaged very fast after the sealing surfaces have lost the lubricant or grease coated on them.
In the embodiment illustrated in
Although the present invention was described in terms of specific embodiments, it is obvious to a person skilled in the art that various alterations and additions are possible without departing from the spirit of the invention which is set out in the appended claims, therefore the extent disclosed in the embodiments above is only for purpose of illustration and not intended to be limited by this description.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/CN06/02051 | 8/14/2006 | WO | 00 | 2/12/2009 |