Shut down valve

A shut down valve (also referred to as SDV or Emergency shutdown valve, ESV, ESD, or ESDV) is an
actuated valve designed to stop the ow of a hazardous
uid or external hydrocarbons (gases) upon the detection
of a dangerous event. This provides protection against
possible harm to people, equipment or the environment.
Shutdown valves form part of a Safety instrumented system. The process of providing automated safety protection upon the detection of a hazardous event is called
Functional Safety
Shutdown valves are primarily associated with the
petroleum industry although other industries may also require this type of protection system. ESD valves are required by law on any equipment placed on an oshore
drilling rig to prevent catastrophic events like the BP Pneumatically actuated shut down valve
Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

2 Types of actuation

As shutdown valves form part of a SIS it is necessary to

operate the valve by means of an actuator. These actuators are normally fail safe uid power type. Typical examples of these are:

Types of valve

Pneumatic cylinder
Hydraulic cylinder
Electro-hydraulic actuator

For uids, metal seated ball valves are used as shutdown valves (SDVs). Use of metal seated ball valves In addition to the uid type, actuators also vary in the
leads to overall lower costs when taking into account lost manner in which the energy is stored to operate the valve
production and inventory, and valve repair costs resulting on demand as follows:
from the use of soft seated ball valves which have a lower
initial cost.
single-acting cylinder - Or spring return
where the energy is stored by means of a
Straight-through ow valves, such as rotary-shaft ball
compressed spring
valves, are typically high-recovery valves. High recovery valves are valves that lose little energy due to little
double-acting cylinder - Energy is
ow turbulence. Flow paths are straight through. Rotary
stored using a volume of compressed
control valves, buttery valve and ball valves are good exuid
amples.
The type of actuation required depends upon the applicaFor air intake shut down, two distinct types are commonly
tion, site facilities and also the physical space available alutilized, i.e. buttery valves and swing gate or guillotine
though the majority of actuators used for shutdown valves
valves. Because diesel engines ignite fuel using compresare of the spring return type due to the fail safe nature of
sion instead of an electronic ignition, shutting o the fuel
spring return systems
source to a diesel engine will not necessarily stop the engine from running. When an external hydrocarbon, such
as methane gas, is present in the atmosphere, it can be
sucked into a diesel engine causing overspeed or over 3 Measuring performance
revving, potentially leading to a catastrophic failure and
explosion. When actuated, ESD valves stop the ow of For shutdown valves used in safety instrumented systems
air and prevent these failures.
it is essential to know that the valve is capable of provid1

4 SEE ALSO

ing the required level of safety performance and that the

valve will operate on demand. The required level of performance is dicated by the Safety Integrity Level (SIL).
In order to adhere to this level of performance it is necessary to test the valve. There are 2 types of testing methods
available being
Proof test - A manual test that allows the operator
to determine whether the valve is in the as good
as new condition by testing for all possible failure
modes and requires a plant shutdown
Diagnostic Test - An automated on-line test that
will detect a percentage of the possible failure
modes of the shudown valve. An example of this
for a shutdown valve would be a partial stroke test.
An example of a mechanical partial stroke test device can be found here.

See also
Actuator
Pipeline transport
Piping
Unit operation
Valves

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1

Text

Shut down valve Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shut%20down%20valve?oldid=658799322 Contributors: Hooperbloob, Lockley, DragonHawk, SmackBot, Mwtoews, LeoNomis, Phuzion, Teratornis, Ais523, Seaphoto, Jay1279, SpigotMap, Squids and Chips,
Krunal800, Gunav, JL-Bot, Phonender2007, Silversol, Daniele Pugliesi, LilHelpa, Gripen-delta, Varmapak, Mmvv520, Bizzy Whizz,
Jack Greenmaven, Vimalesh28, Widr, Rustyhendrix, ChrisGualtieri, SniperChunk and Anonymous: 10

5.2

Images

File:Pneumatically_actuated_Shutdown_valve.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Pneumatically_actuated_

Shutdown_valve.jpg License: PD Contributors: ? Original artist: ?

5.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0