Butterfly valves: Components, Advantages & Applications

A butterfly valve is used to control the flow of material through a circular pipe or tube. The materials usually include air, gas, steam or liquid. Certain dry materials may also be handled through a butterfly valve. It is a quarter turn rotational motion valve that is used to stop, regulate and start the flow. The butterfly valve has a disc which is mounted on a rotating shaft.

The butterfly valves offered by wafer butterfly valve manufacturers in India include 4 components: body, disc, stem and seat.

• Body: Butterfly valves have bodies that fit between two pipe flanges. The most common being lug and wafer body design.
• Disc: The disc helps the valve stop flow. It is equivalent to a plug in a plug valve. Stainless Steel Wafer Butterfly Valves Manufacturers offer variations in disc design, and orientation in order to improve flow, sealing or operating torque.
• Stem: The stem of a butterfly valve maybe one-piece shaft or a two-piece design. The stems in most resilient OEM metal seated valves are protected from the media, thus allowing efficient selection of material with respect to cost and mechanical properties.
• Seat: The seat of a butterfly valve utilizes interference fit between the disc edge and seat to provide shutoff. The seat may be bonded to the body or it may be pressed or locked in.

The components of butterfly valves make them easy to use. Thus, they have many advantages too.

• Easy and fast to open: The 90 degree rotation of the handle provides complete closure or opening of the valve. Certain butterfly valve manufacturers’ offer valves equipped with a gearbox where the hand wheel by gears is connected to the stem. This simplifies the operation of the valve.
• Relatively inexpensive to build: Butterfly valves require less material due to their design. The most economical is the wafer type design. The lug wafer design is also economical to build.
• Less space requirements: Due to the compact design of butterfly valves, they require considerably less space compared to other valves.
• Reduced maintenance: The reliability and maintenance requirements of butterfly valves make them popular. Their compact design makes them long-lasting.

Butterfly valves perform well across a wide range of applications. They perform best in large volume water applications and slurry applications. Some of the applications of butterfly valves are:

• Cooling water, air, gases, fire protection etc.
• Slurry and similar services
• Vacuum service
• High-pressure and high-temperature water and steam services
• Compressed Air or Gas Applications

If you are looking for valves to control fluid operations, choose butterfly valves from reputed butterfly valve manufacturers. They are the best kind of valves available in the market today.

Mr. MohanRaj, Managing Director of Sakthi Auto Anciliary Pvt Ltd, Coimbatore. An ISO 9001:2008 Certified Company. Manufacturer, Supplier & Exporter of Industrial Valves such as Butterfly Wafer Valves, Butterfly Lug Valves & Swing Check Valves.