High Temperature & Abrasion

Many different ball valve types are available including floating ball valve designs, butterfly valves, single spring energised seats, full trunnion mounted valves. Special seating designs provide “protected seats” and “scrapper” designs to refine performance capabilities even further.

All our main supply partners specialise in this area and have many solutions and endless references and operational experiences whether it be high temperature, abrasion, or a combination of both.

We carry stocks of valves with different combinations to reduce the reliance on factory deliveries which are typically longer than standard soft seated valves. We also offer modification and in-house manufacturing options specifically for fast-track deliveries.

These are some of the coating options available:

• Chrome Carbide (High temp gas or liquid, high resistance to corrosive media)
• Hard Chromium (wide range of applications, moderate pressures)
• Cobalt (Stellite) (excellent mechanical wear resistance and extremely high temperatures)
• Tungsten Carbide (High wear resistance and good for Slurries and Cryogenics)

Which Valve Is Used For High Temperature?

Ball valves are typically “soft” seated providing zero leakage shutoff capability, the temperature range for a ball valve is therefore normally limited by the materials used for the seats and seals.

Ball valve temperature capability can be significantly increased by using a “hard” ball & seat arrangement. If seal materials are also carefully selected the temperature range can be extended even further. Metal seated ball valves offer many advantages in process applications and can be produced with minimum leakage rates when compared with gate or globe valves.

However, it’s not always necessary to have 100% shutoff and international valve standards detail allowable leakage rates for metal seated valves depending on the application and the customer requirements. We can assist you in making the correct selection as it is just as important not to “over specify” a valve for a given application.

There are numerous different combinations of seat & ball coatings that all offer different performance levels and durability.

Metal seated ball valves for high temperatures are also used in abrasive applications where soft seats are unsuitable. For example, some petrochemical / process applications where soft seated ball valves would normally be selected sometimes contain solids like sand, a metal seat option will extend the operational life of the valve.