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Welcome to lesson 25 on Flow Control Valves of the course on Industrial Automation. Flow
control valves are very important, so after learning the lesson, the student should be
able to describe the importance of flow control valves, they are found everywhere in process
industries. Learn the structure of major types of flow control valves, learn about the their
flow characteristics, because that is very important in designing the applications. And
finally, the how to actuate these valves and how to affect their characteristics to achieve
a certain characteristic of the process control loop, so these are the topics, that the student
is expected to learn from this lesson.
So, the first of all, let us have a look at, the importance of flow control, flow control
is probably the most important control in a process control application, and as we shall
see, during our process control module, that flow control loops, form a part of most type
of control loops. For example, they are parts of flow loops, where directly flow has to
be controlled, flow is a final objective of control, they are parts of temperature loops,
because temperature is generally controlled by controlling, flow of either a coolant or
and let us say steam, for heating, this is not stream, this is steam.
Of course, for level loops, because by integrating flow only you have level, so all level control
is essentially flow control. Similarly, pressure loops, because again pressure control is achieved
by using flow control, and composition loop, because compositions of products, are typically
dependent on the compositions of the components in a let say a reactor. So, if you want to
control the composition of a particular product, flow control is often a very important part
of that, control applications. So, we see that, for most types of control
applications, flow control is a part, and the element that finally, achieves the control
is the flow control part. So, it is importance, cannot be overstated and as we shall, as we
need to mention again slight spelling mistake. So, this is a valve flow is actually a function
of valve, the pressure drop across the valve and this, and the stem position, as we shall
as we perhaps know that by Bernoulli's equation. The flow of a, flow through a, through an
orifice, of flow control valve is essential in orifice and it is the dimensions of the
orifice, which are varied is proportional to, proportional to a root over of delta P.
Delta P is the pressure difference across the valve, and K is proportionality constant,
which contains among other things, a what we, what we call as discharge coefficient
or C v, so the flow the inflow control valves, it is this K or this discharge coefficient
of the valve which is changed, by changing the orifice dimensions, so that is the way,
we achieves flow control.
Now, so first of all we see, the various kinds of valves and the first kind of valve that
we see are globe valves. Globe valves are so before we must understand the various parts,
so I am going to hatch it, so this is the, these are the ports, this particular flow
control valve, this is inlet port, this is outlet port, this is another component of
the body, not this one, not I am sorry, not this one, not this one, this part, this part,
this is the body, the fluid in fact, there are, this is a top and bottom guided.
Top and bottom guided means the basic valve assembly movement is guided at in the top
and at the bottom. And, it is a double seated globe valve, so there are two seats, one seat
is here, another seat is here. So actually the fluid enters through this and will go
through this, when this valve will rise, when this valve will rise, it will go through this
and will flow out, similarly, it will go through this, it will go through this path and go
out. So, since there are two seats, it is a double
seated globe valve, one of the advantages of double seating, is that the force as you
can see, that the fluid when it flows through the valve, it actually exerts a pressure on,
this valve mechanism, this is called the stem and these are called the plugs, these are
the plugs. So, the plugs actually come and this is the seat, and the plug actually comes
and sits over the seat, and seals the, seals the orifice and when the valve opens, this
plug goes up, so the fluid flows through the orifice.
And, this plug movement is actually realized, by moving the stem, to which the plug is connected,
so obviously, there is the fluid, exerts force on the plug and plug sometimes has to work
against this force. So, to reduce for double seated valves, although they are not so popular
now a days, but double seated valves, one of the biggest advantages of double seated
valves is that, since the force, when the liquid is flowing in this direction and the
force that the liquid exerts in this direction are opposing each other, so the net force
on the stem is actually small. So, therefore, it requires a smaller capacity
of the actuator, to make a movement, but still nevertheless these valves are not so popular,
because of mainly two reasons. Firstly, that single seated valves are can be realized with
a much smaller size number 1, Number 2 is that, because of you know slight mechanical
problems, it is very difficult to ensure that, both the plugs actually seal the, seal the
orifice at the same time, and therefore, often you have problems of leaking through the valve,
that the shut off of the valve is not so tight.
So it is for this reason that people, nowadays prefer single seated valves, so this is a
single seated valve, you know you this is the plug, this is the plug you can see that.
This is the seat on which the plug sits, this is the seat, this is the stem, this is the,
these are the bodies, this is the body. So, the fluid actually flows like this, like this,
like this, so this is the fluid path, when the valve opens, this is the inlet port, inlet
and this is the outlet port. So, this is a top entry, top entry because
the valve stem enters from the top, top guided here there is only one guidance, one guiding
piece, that is top guided not, not top and bottom guided, single seated, because there
is only one seat globe valve. So, these valves are one of the most common types of valves
used in the process industry.
Next are ball valves, these valves have, the in the previous case, the stem actually moves
in a linear fashion up and down, and for these valves the stem actually rotates, so it is
a so it requires a rotary actuator, it can be directly coupled to a motor. So, you see
that, actually you have a ball, a ball like structure, through which there is a hole,
so you can see, the hole, this is the ball, these are ball valves and this is the hole
through the, this is the hole through the ball.
So, now suppose, so this is the hole suppose, so when the ball is in this position, then
you can understand, that this is the inlet port and this is the outlet port. So, when
the suppose the fluid is coming like, this is the inlet port and this is the outlet port,
so when the hole is aligned with the inlet port and outlet port holes, then the fluid
can flow from inlet to outlet. On the other hand if the ball rotates, then the flow is
blocked, so it is by rotating the ball, that various amounts of flows can be realized,
so this is the basic principle of a ball valve.
For example this is a multi-port ball valves, so you can see the ball, this is a cross section,
so the ball is you know like this, semi cylindrical ellipsoidal, and these are the holes. So,
the in this case, this has this can take care of three ports, so you can see that, in various
positions of the ball, if the ball is aligned like this, then liquid can flow from here
to here, if it is aligned this way, it can flow from this to this or this to this. So,
under the various positions of the ball valve, you can have various kinds of, various ports
can be connected to various others. This is a T ported ball valve we can have an angle
ported valve, ball valve and things like that, so this is the basic principle of balls valve.
This is this picture shows how when a ball valve rotates, then how the flow throttling
takes place, so you see, that as it is rotating. So this, the effective area of flow, they
gets reduced, so as it rotates slowly the effective area of flow, will get reduced and
therefore, the flow will get reduced, so the flow gets throttled.
This is another, kinds of ball valve, where the ball is of a certain shape, so it is called
a characterized ball valve. So, here you can see that, as again as it rotates this surface,
slowly comes and closes the flow, and therefore the flow the flow can be throttled or it can
be completely shut off, so these are this is another kind of ball valve called the characterized
ball vale.
The third kind of valve, actually there are various kinds of valves, we are going to only
talk about some major ones, but there are at least ten, fifteen different types of valve,
which are, which are used in various kinds of applications in the industry diaphragm
valve, pinch valve a sliding gate valve, etcetera, etcetera. So, this is another kind of valve,
which is called a butterfly valve, so basic idea is that, this is butterfly valves are
used in large pipes, they are also used for the apart from you know, applications in let
us say, a liquid applications like water, water flow control etcetera.
They are also used in gas applications, like they are used in a, heating ventilation, air
conditioning applications of large buildings, where the airflow needs to be controlled.
so in such applications butterfly valves are also used. So, basic idea is that, in all
valves there has to be an variable obstruction right, so it is this disc, which is the, which
creates the obstruction, and there is a shaft or a pin about which, so you can understand,
that you can understand that this is a butterfly valve and there is basically a shaft runs
across it and this shaft is driven. So, this is valve is actually, stuck to this
and if you rotate this actuator, then this valve can be either in this position or in
this position. So, if you have pipe here, if you have a pipe here, then if you connect
in this position then it is open, if you connect at this, if you put it in this positive then
it is closed. So, exactly that is the position, so the these two positions are shown, so this
is the open position of the disc, open position and this is the closed position of the disc,
both positions are shown closed position. And this is the shaft or pin, which is driven
to move the disc, various shapes of discs are used to you know again, to reduce the
torque requirement on the shaft or to reduce noise, of these such big discs, when you have
a fast flowing fluid can sometimes vibrate and create noise.
So, this is the picture which shows that, so look from a side, when the disc is, in
this position then the damper or then the damper is perpendicular to flow and the valve
is closed. When it is moving in and throttling or controlling the flow and when it is in
this position, then when damper is parallel flow, then is completely open.
So, there are various kinds of disc, which are used as I said to take care of various
factors like torque and noise.
Now, we so we have seen three different types of valves, characterized in terms of construction.
Now, we shall characterize valves in another way, depending on their flow characteristics,
so depending on their flow characteristics, valve can be generally characterized, in into
three different classes. One is butterfly valves are typically of equal percentage type,
that is why and butterfly was written, so one is this equal percentage,. so another
is linear and the third one is quick opening. So, this equal percentage valve is you can
see, equal percentage means, that if you have a this is percent lift, percent lift means,
the stem if it is lifted by a certain percentage, this the stem is moving, so percent lift or
percent stem position it, this it may not be, though it is called lift, it may not be
always a lift you know, sometimes it may be a rotation also. Basically means, that percent
of the total stem movement, so it says that, if you increase the stem movement by x percent,
then y percent of the current flow will it, so the flow will increase by y percent of
the current flow. So, if you make x percent change, if you make
a delta x, x percent of full scale, so if you make a 20 percent change here, then may
be 5 percent of the current flow, which is here will take place. On the other hand, if
you make a 20 percent change here, then 5 percent of the current flow, which is here
will take place, if you make twenty percent change here, then 5 percent of the current
flow which is here will take place. So, you see that for the same 20 percent change, at
20 percent, 40 percent, 60 percent, 80 percent the change in flow is going to gradually increase,
giving rise to this characteristics. So, an equal percentage of the current flow
will take place, if you make a certain, a certain fixed percentage of lift change, that
is the reason, why these valves are called equal percentage. So, you can easily analyze,
you can easily understand, that this sort of characteristic exponential kind of characteristic