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Rotary Valve Functions Booklet
Rotary Valve Functions Booklet
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Introduction
3
3
Construction Features
Rotary Valve Types
Drop-Through Valves
Side-Inlet Valves
Blow-Through Valves
Quick CleanTM Valves
Rotors
Pocket Configurations
Clearances
Materials of Construction
Housing Construction
End Bell Construction
Application Techniques
Orientation
Reducing Shear
Venting
Leakage
Purging
Differential Pressure
Abrasive Products
Temperature
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
6
6-7
7
8
8
9-10
11
11-12
13
13
13
14
14
14
15
16
Andritz
Rotary Valves
Contents
For over 60 years Andritz has been designing pneumatic systems and manufacturing components for these systems. The rotary valve has
more of an effect on both the operating performance and the efficiency of a pneumatic system than any other single pneumatic conveying
component. Through the evolution of producing
a high quality rotary valve, Andritz has incorporated many features that help the valves endure
the many difficult products in the chemical and
plastic industry.
The following article reviews some of those features and will help you size, vent and apply the
proper rotary valve for your specific application.
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Andritz
Rotary Valves
Functions
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Andritz
Rotary Valves
Construction Features
Side-Inlet Valves
The side-inlet valve is offset from the product
flow line, so that
rotor pockets are
only partially filled
from the side as
they move up
past the inlet.
This design
eliminates or
minimizes
product shearing
between rotor
and housing.
Figure 4-2 Side-Inlet Valve
The degree of pocket filling from the side depends on the products flow characteristics. To
compensate for varying flow characteristics, the
sideinlet valves inlet contains and adjustable baffle plate that can be raised or lowered to increase
or decrease pocket loading.
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Rotors
Rotors are fabricated and precision machined
to exact tolerances. They are available in two
basic types: open-end and closed end
(shrouded). An open-end rotor is a shaft
to which blades are welded, forming pockets. Closed-end rotors have shrouds on each
end; blades are welded to the shaft and to
each shroud, providing strength and rigidity.
Construction Features
Type 1
Type 2
Type 3
Type 4
Pocket Configurations
Within these two categories are four primary rotor
pocket configurations. (See Figure 5-1)
A maximum capacity rotor has full, deep pockets
for maximum displacement.
A third rotor type is a deep pocket rotor with concave filler plates (pocket surfaces) that reduce
pocket depth by fifty percent for reduced capacity and/or better product release. Pockets can be
polished or Teflon coated so that sticky products
flow easily from each pocket if necessary.
Materials of Construction
The housing and end bells of most rotary
valves are cast iron, carbon or stainless steel,
and aluminum. More exotic metals are used
occasionally.
Construction Features
Side-inlet valves do not have inspection panels,
because the offset inlet does not allow room. For
this reason, most side-inlet valves do not have
adjustable rotor tips.
Housing Construction
In a drop-through valve body, a full-length inspection panel allows access to the side of the
valve to clean out foreign material that may have
jammed the rotor. Removing the panel also permits accurate adjustment of rotor tips to the valve
body, compensating for wear. Without a panel,
the valve must be removedin order to set tips.
However, removing the rotor makes guesswork of
setting clearances, because tips cannot be set to
the body.
In a high-quality valve, the panel is bolted to the
casing and the two are bored together for accurate roundness. This provides consistent rotor tip-to housing clearance. The mating surface
between the panel and housing is a machined
fit. The casting has full round ends that are machined to accept the end bells machined insert
surfaces. This provides structural support when
the inspection panel is removed.
(See Figure 6-1)
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Construction Features
Figure 7-3
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Orientation
Whether running as airlock, feeder, or both, a
rotary valve should be placed in service with
the rotor shaft perpendicular to the conveying
line, rotating downwards on the downstream
side. This arrangement minimizes the tendency of conveying air to hold product in rotor pockets, as might happen if the pockets were coming down on the upstream side.
Discharging on the downstream side of the air
stream prevents shearing of product on the
bottom side of the valve. If the valve is set
with the rotor parallel to the flow of air, theres
a tendency for material to pack into the downstream end bell area. This would cause unnecessary wear on the rotor and housing.
Andritz
Rotary Valves
Application Techniques
Reducing Shear
At the inlet of a pressure system, a side-entry
valve can be used to reduce product shear, while
serving as a metering feeder for granular, freeflowing materials. The angle of repose prevents
complete filling of the pocket and the location of
the shear point allows product to fall away from
the shear point between rotor tips and the bore
of the casing. This approach is recommended
where product degradation and fines are a problem.
Figure 8-1 shows other methods of reducing
shear for products that do not lend themselves to
a side entry valve.
Where particles are caught between rotor tips
and casing on the blunt side of an inlet, there is
a risk of damage to the valve as it tries to shear
product. Shearing is evidenced by noise and
drive chain jerking. This causes excessive fines,
rotor tip wear, and broken drive chains.
In certain cases, shear knives are installed at the
inlet of a valve to actually cut the product between the knife and the rotor tips such as when
handling wood veneer.
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Venting
Inadequate venting is probably the most
common fault in rotary valve installations.
Proper venting allows the valve to function at
its best when feeding a positive pressure
system.
Application Techniques
Figure 9-1
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Application Techniques
Another caution is to be sure that the vent line
is installed so there are no angles less than the
products angle of repose, so material can fall
freely back to the valve. A horizontal or shallowangle vent line will clog with material that falls
out of the vent air stream. Use of a vent bag, is
discouraged because fine products may quickly
clog the bags pores and reduce ventilation.
Suggested
uggested Design for Venting Valves
Rotary Valve Size
OD
0806
1008
1410
10
1614
14
2018
18
2422
22
10
3026
26
12
Feeder
S.I. Feeder
Figure 10-1
Andritz Feed & Biofuel
336 West Penn Street, Muncy PA 17756-1202, USA
Phone: 800/446-8629 FAX: 570/546-1615
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10
Leakage
Air leakage must be considered wherever rotary valves are used. Natural air leakage can
be beneficial when used for purging (see discussion below.) In calculating system
efficiency, one must take into account leakage as air passes through rotary valves,
whether still or operating.
Figure 11-1 shows approximate leakage
values for rotary valves not in operation. To
obtain total estimated leakage it is necessary
to add rotor displacement, times the valve
speed, to the leakage shown on these curves. If
there are several valves in the system, the total
air leakage must be added to the CFM requirements of the fan or blower selected for that system.
Application Techniques
Since the area between the rotor shroud and the
end bells can also see product on both closed
and open bottom valves, these should be purged,
as well especially on abrasive products or
those that might tend to stick or accumulate in
that area. Valves should be equipped with two
purge taps in each end bell.
Vacuum Receiver
Vessel
Purging
When product-laden air or gas is permitted to
enter clearance areas, it can erode the housing
and rotor seal areas. Purging prevents this. Purging application involves removing purge plugs
from the ends of a rotary valve at the outlet of a
vacuum system, as shown in Figure 11-3.
The vacuum draws clean air in through the purge
holes and over the rotor shrouds, keeping product out of those clearance areas.
Figure 11-1
Figure 11-3
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Application Techniques
FLOW
FLOW
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Differential Pressure
In addition to capacity, valves are rated by the
amount of pressure rotors can withstand
without excessive deflection. A 15 psi valve,
for example, will withstand a pressure differential from inlet to discharge of 15 psi without causing the rotor to bind or allow excessive leakage. This 15 psi designation is not a
pressure rating, as in the case of pressure
vessels.
Application Techniques
Temperature
In applying rotary valves, one must rememb
ber to compensate for rotor growth at elevated temperatures. With clearances of .002 to
.004 in cast iron and .005 to .007 in stainless,
expansion becomes a factor at product temperatures over 120F. Actual operating temperature
must be specified so the valve manufacturer can
provide proper clearances.
Abrasive Products require special consideration
of materials of construction and purging to minimize wear.
Figure 13-1 Closed Bottom
Mildly abrasive products can be handled successfully in valves with chrome plated bores, hard
surfaced shrouds, and Ni-Hard adjustable rotor
tips.
More abrasive products should be handled in
valves with hard surfaced bores, hard surfaced
shrouds, and Ni-Hard adjustable tips. In rotor
types without adjustable tips, the edges of the rotor blades should be hard surfaced.
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Parameter
Rotary valve sizes are typically specified by rotor
diameter, rotor length, and inlet dimensions.
Andritz valves, for example, use a numbering
system in which the first two numerals indicate
rotor diameter and the second two numerals
represent rotor length. Where a square inlet is
used, the second two numerals also indicate inlet
dimensions. For example, an Andritz 1410 valve
has a 14 inch diameter rotor that is 10 inches
long; the inlet is 10 inches by 10 inches.
Bulk Density
While valves are specified to handle a certain
number of pounds per hour, theyre selected on the
basis of volume in cubic feet per hour. Therefore,
proper sizing requires knowledge of the products
bulk density as seen by the valve. This is critical to
proper sizing, because an aerated product can have a
bulk density far below the same products bulk density
in a resting state. Some clay materials, at rest, have a
bulk density of 40 lbs./cuft; when aerated, bulk density
drops to 5 lbs.cuft. This example, while extreme, is
real and illustrates the need to be sure of product
density within the system when sizing the valve.
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Sizing Rotary Valves
To Calculate the speed of a feeder, at 100% pocket
fill you would first calculate the capacity in cubic feet
per hour. For example, if we are to meter 15,000 lb./
hr of product weighing 25 lbs./cuft., we would divide
the rate per hour by the bulk density which calculates
to 600 cuft./hr. An Andritz 1410 rotary valve displaces
.65 cuft./rev. or 975 cuft./hr. operating at 25 RPM. The
next smaller valve, a 1008 has a displacement of .27
cuft./rev., or 405 cuft./hr. which would not be large
enough to handle the capacity.
The Valve speed will equal the volume to be handled, divided by the rotor displacement in cu. Ft./
revolution(the AS 1410 valve displaces .65 cu. Ft./
revolution) and by 60 to change the units to minutes.
Valve Speed
When used as an airlock, a rotary valve must be
sized to handle ALL of the material that comes to it,
without allowing any product to build up over the valve
into the receiver or cyclone. Since all systems show
some tendencies toward surging and imprecise feeding (leading to poor pocket filling), an airlock is always
sized at 50% of its maximum capacity and run at
airlock speed: 45 rpm for rotors up to 16 in diameter.
Larger units, because of tip speed considerations,
would run at lower speeds.
When used as a feeder, a rotary valve must be sized
to allow product sufficient time to fill the rotor pockets.
Feeder or metering valves are sized on approximately
70 to 100% efficiency based on product flow characteristics. All calculations are done in cubic feet per
hour. The desired operating speed of a metering valve
would be 8 to 25 RPM. Based on a maximum 25 RPM
valve speed a valve should be sized to accept the
maximum product flow below this speed.
Therefore, we would select a 1410 rotary valve running at 15 rpm to handle 15,000 lb./hr. of 25 lb./ft. 3
product.
A valve this size takes a 1 HP gear motor drive. For
a valve speed of 15 rpm, we would use a gear motor
with an output speed of 49 rpm.
Sometimes a products flowability affects sizing morethan its density. When a product doesnt flow well, its
desirable to use as large inlet as possible to minimize
the angle of transition from the vessel above the
valve.
However, a large valve may have more capacity than
the conveying system requires. This is where one
uses the reduced capacity rotors. Selection and
speed calculations for these valves are the same as
previously outlined. Another reason for using a reduced capacity rotor is to keep the valve speed
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Drives
Almost every rotary valve is driven by sprocket and chain, using a parallel shaft gearmotor. Three basic speeds are used for the gear
motor outputs: 98, 49 and 30 rpm. From
these, by sprocket selection, we can adjust
valve speed precisely.
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Sizing Rotary Valves
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15
Date
Phone
Fax
Lab. No.
EMail
Product
Capacity (CU FT/HR)
Flow Characteristics
Product Temperature
Particle Size
Capacity (lb/hr)
Bulk Density (LB/CU FT)
Moisture Content
Characteristics:
Corrosive
Abrasive
Pressure:
Postive Negative
Application: Feeder Airlock
Model: MST
MSI
QC
Construction: C.I. C.I. Chrome
Hygroscopic
Volatile
Tough
Friable
Below Valve
Above Valve
Other Indoor Outdoor
304 SST 316 SST Other
Square Inlets and Outlets are Standard. Accessory attachments are available as required
for pipe flange.
Inlet Required: __________Square
Rotor:
HRS
Type 1
Tips:
ARS
NI-HARD
304 SST
316 SST
Other __________________________________________________
Motor:
TEFC
EXPL. Proof
Chemical Duty
Hi-Efficiency
Other __________________________________________________
304 SST
Type 2
316 SST
Type 3
Other
Type 4
Equipment:
Above the Rotary Valve: _________________________________________________________
Below the Rotary Valve: _________________________________________________________
Andritz Feed & Biofuel
336 West Penn Street, Muncy PA 17756-1202, USA
Phone: 800/446-8629 FAX: 570/546-1615
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16
Andritz
35 Sherman Street Muncy, PA 17756 USA
Visit us at andritz.com
Tel: 800/446-8629 Fax: 570/546-1306
Andritzs registered Trademark, service marks, word marks,and logos, including Andritz may not be used or reproduced
without permission. Any individual, organization or company wishing to use Andritz and trademarks must obtain the right
to do so in writing from Andritz.
Andritz Feed & Biofuel
336 West Penn Street, Muncy PA 17756-1202, USA
Phone: 800/446-8629 FAX: 570/546-1615
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