Customer

taps

Our client is the European market leader for technical ball valves. The company creates and sells various valves and actuators either pneumatic or electrical.

 


Tested product

Ball valve and extension valve

A valve is a plumbing device used to regulate a flow. There are several valve types. The ball valve is either a valve to stop water circulation or a valve used for flow regulation.

 

Valve control speed
Ball valve

Objective

Testing valves sealing, assert their resistance to leakage due to pressure, flow or duration. Our client wants to control the quality and sealing of its products at the end of the production process.

 


Problematic issues

  • Being able to measure extremely low leakage rates
  • Being able to simulate an adjustable clamping force corresponding to the tightening of the valve flanges
  • Enable testing of a wide range of valve sizes
  • The system must be compact and transportable, and ensure good ergonomics.

Solution and result

The proposed equipment is a system allowing the gripping and tightening of 1/4 turn valves, in order to carry out tightness tests with an air injection system equipped with a micro flow measurement.

For each type of valve, the tooling is made up of two identical parts ensuring the sealing function with the valve on a flat face and a positioning function of the ball valve. The ergonomics of the bench being optimized, the movements of the tooling are made via the two buttons on the front of the control panel.

The control system (internal PC) has a set of predefined programs depending on the type of valves to be tested. It displays messages on the control panel indicating the different test steps to the operator (identify yourself, identify the product, identify the test program used, place the valve, open the valve, close the valve, etc).

The Man-Machine interface allows:

- to edit the test reports automatically

- to set up the valve test programs

- to back up the leakage measurement files with traceability.

To ensure the safety of the operators, an emergency stop button is placed on the front of the bench. It activates the engine stop command.

 

Discover another case study for this customer 

 

All valves are tested for air tightness (leakage measurement) before being put on the market.

The test system checks the closing/opening functions of the tooling with controlled tightening. The air injection and leakage measurement system is controlled via the specific software using the control panel.

 

 

French Fab