FUSION “T-SERIES” BALL VALVE
FUSION “T-SERIES” BALL VALVE
While the Ladish Metal Seated Ball Valve for Power is relatively new to the market, the engineering, design principles and team members’ expertise behind this valve are well established. The Ladish team collectively brings over 100 years’ experience to the design and application of Metal Seated Ball Valves.
Over the past 30 + years, the Metal Seated Ball Valve has found wide applications in the Thermal Power Generation industry as well as in steam and high energy applications in Refining, Chemical, Paper and other industries. Over the years, the performance and reliability requirements have grown more rigid as have the quality standards expected of the manufacturers. It is now required that these valves provide tight shut-off capability along with the ability to function through severe thermal cycles. The development of the Ladish valve used these requirements as a basis and added modern requirements of low emissions, sustainable manufacturing technology and ease of automation.
Existing Severe Service Metal Seated Ball Valves in the Power Market generally fall into two basic designs.
- The first and most common is the “Inserted Seat” where the ball and replaceable seats are coated then “mate” lapped together with the seat either being loose or pressed fit into a valve body. The concept is to utilize the same seat and ball material for thermal matching but leaves a vulnerability of leakage behind the inserted seat as the body material is typically different from the trim. This secondary leak path is difficult to control and limits the ability of these valves to provide tight shut-off.
- The other less common design utilizes what is commonly referred to as an “integral seat”. In this design the primary seat is machined into part of the valve body and the coated ball is then lapped into that seat. This is advantageous in that there is no leak potential behind the seat. The disadvantage is that the ball and seat are usually different materials and not thermally matched. This results in leakage as valves go through the routine thermal cycles.
Considering the damage quickly caused by either leak mechanism, there is clearly opportunity for a new and better design like the Ladish Fusion Valve!
The major design feature of the Fusion Valve is the “Captured Flange Seat” which addresses the issues above. This design incorporates the desirable feature of a replaceable seat thermally matched with the ball, and then “clamps” the foot of the seat between the two halves of the valve to eliminate the secondary leak path. This new Ladish design includes the good attributes of others while eliminating the most common causes of valve failure. To further improve reliability and sealing performance, Ladish does a 360o seat-to-ball lapping process called FS (Full Surface) Lap. The fully automated Diamond FS process laps ALL of the ball surface to the seats preventing the “ridges” in older design valves that cause high torque in automated valves and routine coating failures.
While the proper design is critical, a key to valve reliability is the coatings used on the balls and seats. Apart from the fact that the coatings create a “bearing surface” that allows the valves to cycle without galling, it is the lapped coating that creates the seal. If the coating fails, the valve fails. In the Ladish Fusion Valve, we utilize an industry standard HVOF robotically applied Chromium Carbide Coating in our Class 1500 and 900 valves. However, for the Class 2500/3100 and above we will utilize a “Sprayed-and-Fused” Carbide Based coating that has many times the bond strength of the HVOF coatings, and is a better thermal match in the high energy valves.
The benefits to you are improved reliability and repeatable tight shutoff to all global standards.
- Available Sizes: 1/2” – 4”
- A105, F22, F91, F92 & others
- Available Classes: ASME 1500-4500 Limited Class
- Two-Piece Construction
- Uni-Directional
- Available in: SWE, BWE, HUB-END
- Ball & Seat– Standard: 410SS, HP-HVOF (Chrome Carbide Nickel Chrome)– Optional: Inconel718 – Fused (Chromium Boride Chrome Carbide)
- Bore Sizes– .65″, 1.00″, 1.50″, 2.00″, 2.50″ (1500, 3100, 4500)– .65″, 1.00″ (4500)
