Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gate Valve
Gate Valve
Regardless of why you want to do this, and whether you should, basically
there are three methods.
1. The valve is lab tested at various openings and the Cv calculated from the
test results. The best method. Call the manufacturer.
2. Carefully measure the shape and area of the orifice opening at various
positions and calculate Cv which requires knowing the loss coeficient for each
geometric shape and it's position in the flow passage (which you probably will
not know). This method will give you an idea but will contain errors.
3. Find test data on a similar valve, and establish the percent of flow at
various stroke positions, and apply these percentages to your valve. This will
be of unknown accuracy.
Gate valves are very loosely guided. You may be able to calculate a Cv for an
intermediate position, but in reality the disc will be dancing about and the Cv
will be dithering back and forth, without commanded movement of the disc.
If, in fact, you intend to throttle continuously with a gate valve, you will find
that any guiding surfaces provided will be fretted away and the disc will be
found mysteriously, in the middle of the night, downstream, lodged in
something that will be expensive to repair.
I will respectfully submit that the reason that the Cv curve is not published for
a Gate Valve is because Gate Valve manufacturers know not to use the gate
valve for modulating, and don't want to give anybody any information that
suggests such a use. I found the Figure "flow resistance vs open" in the
Handbook of Hydraulic resistance by Idelchik and Ive estimated the CV vs
%open.<<
If you have the curve, then ratio the rated Cv to 100% and the intermediate
Cvs to whatever percent they are of full open ....it becomes a simple ratio
problem