How to Choose Tilting Disc Check Valve?
How to choose the right check valve?
Tilting disc, slanted seat check valves
The slanted seat check valve also offers enhanced resistance to water hammer. The valve has a double eccentric shaft position as well as an increased seating angle. This yields a shorter valve stroke, thus reducing the time taken for the door to close.
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Hydraulic dampers are recommended, especially when the valves are installed on a pumping station where high frequency opening and closing of the valve is required. The valve disc closes quickly over the first 85% of its angular travel before meeting the hydraulic damper. The damper then dissipates the kinetic energy of the disc and forces it to open slightly. The disc closes until it contacts the damper again and this cushions the disc until it returns to its fully closed position, sealing the valve. This function greatly reduces the onset of water hammer due to the damped and controlled method of valve closure.Hydraulic dampers are recommended, especially when the valves are installed on a pumping station where high frequency opening and closing of the valve is required. The valve disc closes quickly over the first 85% of its angular travel before meeting the hydraulic damper. The damper then dissipates the kinetic energy of the disc and forces it to open slightly. The disc closes until it contacts the damper again and this cushions the disc until it returns to its fully closed position, sealing the valve. This function greatly reduces the onset of water hammer due to the damped and controlled method of valve closure.
For more details, please see our slanted seat check valve product information.
Nozzle check valves
Nozzle check valves are designed with the valve disc connected to the stem which is guided on the central horizontal axis. A spring is positioned between the disc and the diffuser sleeve. When flow enters the valve, the hydraulic force exerted onto the front face reacts against the spring, causing the spring to compress and allow the valve to open. When the flow stops, the spring forces the disc to return to the closed position.
Due to the spring-assisted closure and the short linear valve stroke, the nozzle check valve is one of the quickest acting check valves available and is commonly used in pumped systems where water hammer is a potential concern. Because the disc is constantly in the direct line of flow, the head loss characteristics of this valve are higher compared to that of conventional swing check valves.
For more details, please see our nozzle check valve product information.
What to consider when choosing your check valves?
In order to choose the right check valve for your application, several selection criteria should be considered. First, however, there is not one type of check valves being the best choice for all applications, and the selection criteria may not be equally important for all cases. Some of the things you may need to consider are fluid compatibility, flow characteristics, head loss, non-slam characteristics and total cost of ownership.
Fluid
All check valves referred to in this article are designed for water and treated wastewater applications, but using the valves for raw wastewater/sewage applications may cause some issues. When selecting a valve for these fluids, you should consider how the presence of solids may potentially affect operation of the valve.
Flow characteristics
If a check valve closes very fast, it may prevent slamming against upstream equipment such as pumps. However, the rapid closure will not protect against the surges caused by pumps being started and shut down. If the valve opens (and closes) quickly, the flow will change rapidly and thus increase likeliness of surge occurrence.
Head loss
Head loss is, among other things, a function of fluid velocity. The head loss through a valve is determined by the internal design of the valve and the opening degree. When a valve is designed with a restricted (narrowed) opening compared to the pipeline, the velocity will increase through the valve, increasing the head loss as a result. Vice versa, if a valve is designed with less restriction and bore is equal size to the pipeline, the head loss will be smaller, and the valve will in practice not affect the overall head loss of the system. There are a number of values for head loss, amongst others zeta values, Kv and Kvs values.
Total cost of ownership
The costs for your check valve consist of more than just the purchase price. For some installations, the most important costs may be purchasing and installation, but in other cases, maintenance or energy costs may be equally or even more important. Also protecting more valuable equipment such as e.g. pumps has to be considered, and looking at the valve performance will be crucial. When considering costs as a selection criterion for your check valve, the total costs over the life of the valve should be considered. In general, the simpler the valve construction is, the lower are the maintenance requirements. The higher the Kv value, the lower the energy consumption. The higher the performance, the better the protection ability.
Non-slam characteristics
Check valve slam can affect pressure surges in a negative way. First step of the process is when the pump stops, starting the pressure surge. Second step is, when the flow is reversed, slamming against the fully closed check valve. If the check valve closes too fast, the kinetic energy is turned into high pressure, stressing the pipes, and causing high noise.
A slam sounds like if the disc or the ball from the check valve is hitting the seat and can make quite some noise. However, the sound is not caused by the physical closing but by a sound wave arising from a pressure spike stretching the pipe wall.
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To prevent the occurrence of check valve slam, the valve should close in a controlled way and slower when near closed position. For a check valve to close slowly, it requires additional ancillary equipment, such as hydraulic dampers, which act as a cushion to the valve door, as it comes into its seated position. This slower closure allows the fluid to pass through the check valve until it closes, causing less kinetic energy turning into high pressure, and thus less energy to feed and maintain the surge. Consideration must be given to the upstream pump to ensure that it is suitable for reverse spin and flow.
As swing check valves have the disc in the flow stream, helping with rapid closure, they have better non-slam characteristics. However, today many pumps are frequency converted, enabling them to adjust the start-up and closure time to avoid water hammer.
How to select the right check valve
Swing check valves
Swing check valves are the most common check valves. They are inexpensive and as they are automatic they do not require any external power or control to operate only the flow direction determines the valve operation. Swing check valves with closed bushings do not have an open/close indicator but often the valves are mounted with lever and weight or lever and spring which enable visual check. For more details, please visit the section about swing check valves.
Ball check valves
In general, ball check valves are simple and cost effective. Advantages are their compactness and the fact that they have no external parts which helps keeping the price low and the reliability high. A disadvantage may for some applications be that they do not have an open/close indicator. For more details, please visit the section about ball check valves.
Recoil check valve
The recoil check valve is one of the oldest and recognized types of high performance check valves. They are used in pumping systems where high rapid flow reversal takes place. Typically, these active systems are pumping stations which adopt high branch velocities and, in addition, provide automatic stopping and starting, deliver into a vertically rising main and have multipump sets delivering into a common main.
The recoil check valve is designed to incorporate every mechanical and hydraulic assistance for accelerating the closure of the door.
- Mechanical assistance is given by a combination of inertia reduction, concentration of mass and ideal suspension of the moving elements.
- Hydraulic assistance is given by the provision for forward and backward water streams within the body and around the valve door
For larger valve sizes, a multidoor design is used. By sharing the volume of flow by two, three or even four doors, this reduces the required angular travel of each door, thus reducing the closure times of the doors.
The recoil check valves have metal to metal seats and an allowable leakage rate is to be considered.
Tilting disc check valves
The tilting disc check valve is similar in appearance to an eccentric butterfly valve. The valve body is doubleflanged and of a short length. The disc is held in place via a shaft which is positioned eccentrically from the body centreline in both the horizontal and vertical axes.
The double eccentricity of the shaft results in the lower section of the disc occupying a greater area in the flow path. Consequently, the disc begins to open at very low flow rates. The tilting disc check valve is therefore commonly used in pumping systems with low flow rates and also for pulsating flows.
During flow reversal, the disc closes due to gravity and the upper part of the disc above the shaft centreline pushes against the flow thus acting as a hydraulic brake which cushions the disc as it returns to the closed position. Tilting disc valves can be supplied with optional levers and weights to adjust the closing characteristics of the valve. As such, the tilting disc check valves are well suited to reduce the risk of water hammers.
Because of the internal shafts which are within the flow stream, the tilting disc check valve is used for water and treated effluent applications. For more details, please see our tilting disc check valve product information.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Nozzle Check Valves.