What is a Knife Edge Gate Valve?
Specially designed for the corrosive, highly viscous and abrasive type of media, Knife Edge Gate Valve works by allowing thick media to easily flow over seals with least interference. They work by chopping up the media as it passes through the valve.
These Valves were developed and designed when the paper industry needed a valve that could handle stringy pulp. In normal Gate Valve, it would get stuck between the wedge and the seat of the Valve and prevent flow shut-off. Knife Edged Gate Valves were specially designed with sharp edges to cut through the pulp and achieve sealing.
In this edition of Evalve, we take a look at all the Hows, Wheres and Whens in this type of Valve.
How does it work?
Knife Edge Gate Valves effectively work on viscous fluids and slurries, A knife gate valve operates by allowing thick media to easily flow over seals with least interference. Because of its highly effective design characteristics, Knife Edge Gate Valves soon became invaluable in these type of applications
Where they are used?
Knife Edge Gate Valves are used in many process plants today and come in various sizes which makes it easier to handle thick flows of light grease, heavy oils, varnish, slurry, wastewater, paper pulp etc. Due to this, Knife Edge Gate Valves have pressure limitations and are designed to seat the blade into the seal with no disruption.
why to use Knife Edge Gate Valve?
Knife Edge Gate Valves are more popular due to their compact design, easy operation, light weight and cost-efficiency. Specially designed for many process industries which requires to cut through pulps and create sealing effect.
Knife edge Gate Valves v/s Gate Valves
The main difference lies in the application or media types these both Valves can handle. Knife Edge Valves can handle slurries, power or granules very effectively as compared to Gate Valves, which requires clear media for effective operation.
Secondly, Gate Valve can not handle highly viscous media, whereas Knife Edge Gate Valves are best suited for viscous media.
This makes Knife Edge Valves suitable for industries like process plants, Cement, paper, stringy food products etc