Keywords
Citation
(1998), "Fluidpower leads with launch of high-grade stainless steel solenoid and valve", Anti-Corrosion Methods and Materials, Vol. 45 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/acmm.1998.12845dad.011
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1998, MCB UP Limited
Fluidpower leads with launch of high-grade stainless steel solenoid and valve
Fluidpower leads with launch of high-grade stainless steel solenoid and valve
Keywords Fluidpower, Solenoid, Stainless steel, Valve
With the launch of a new stainless steel solenoid-operated control valve for wellhead and process valve duties, Fluidpower (Stainless Steel) Limited claims to offer the offshore oil and gas industries significant advantages improved corrosion resistance, lower power consumption and reduced size and weight.
Fluidpower believes it is the first company to develop a unit which marries a solenoid manufactured in high-grade 316 austenitic stainless steel with a hydraulic valve of the same material (Plate 5).
Plate 5 Solenoid-operated control valve
from Fluidpower, mounted on a stainless steel main stage valve
Previously, high-quality stainless steel hydraulic valves have had to be fitted with low-grade martensitic stainless steel solenoids or, more usually, with carbon steel solenoids which have been plated or painted for corrosion protection. The latter achieve an average of only five years' service in salt-laden atmospheres before needing replacement.
The designer, Fluidpower director Michael Dennis, said: "We have taken a well proven design from our range of hydraulic valves and coupled it with an equally reliable high-grade stainless steel solenoid as used by our associate company, Bifold, to operate pneumatic valves. The result is a high-integrity cost-effective hydraulic valve which can be fitted as a pilot stage on main stage valves". The unit is available as such on valves with nominal flow ratings from 15 litres per minute to in excess of 200 litres per minute.
Approved by BASEEFA for use in flammable atmospheres at pressures up to 690 bar and certified EExd IIC T6, the new unit has a power consumption of only 3 watts. This has enabled Fluidpower to reduce the solenoid to one-third of the weight and two-thirds the physical size of previously-used EExd IIB T6 certified solenoids, apparently without any reduction in performance. On a typical installation using 200 such valves, the weight saving will amount to approximately 1tonne.
Manufacture of the new stainless steel solenoid-operated control valve will be carried out to ISO 9001 standards in Fluidpower's new purpose-built factory in Greater Manchester, UK.
Details are available from Fluidpower (Stainless Steel) Ltd. Tel: +44 (0) 161 345 4770.