Sanitary Divert Valve Slamming?

Automated stem seat valves are workhorses in the sanitary food and beverage process industries and for good reason.  They are versatile, easily cleaned in place, low maintenance and relatively cost effective.  They are available in a wide range of sizes.  Properly applied, they can operate trouble free for long periods. Having said that, if you have spent much time in a sanitary processing facility, you have probably experienced the sound of a sanitary seat valve slam shut resulting in the process line shaking back and forth.  Often this is a result of an improper application of the valve.  Sanitary seat valves are designed to close against the flow (for standard shut off valves, this means in the bottom out the side).  If they are piped with the flow, they will often slam when actuated.

For a standard shut off valve most manufacturers offer a reverse acting model if piping consideration do not allow piping the valve in the optimal position.  For divert valves, this is not always the case.  Sanitary divert valves are used all over sanitary process plants.  Normally they have one inlet and two outlets, allowing flow to go in one of two directions.  This process is often reversed as well. The standard configuration is to have the inlet and one outlet on the side of the valve and the second inlet on the bottom. The valve stem has two seats that operate in the middle part of the valve sliding from one seat to the other to divert the flow.  Using a standard loaded actuator, this configuration almost guarantees that the valve will slam in one the two operating conditions.  How do you fix this?  sansun valve has an answer.

SSD05 is one of the most configurable valve lines on the market.  Their traditional type SSD05 series divert valve has 12 different configurations.  But these all have the same drawbacks as far as their potential for “valve slam”. To solve this problem Waukesha also offers the SSD05 line of sanitary divert valves.  These valves are configured so that all of the ports are on the same plane (8 configurations in all).  The inlet comes into the middle of the valve with the two outlets on the top and bottom (or vice versa for reversed flow)

On the SSD05 divert valve, the valve stem goes from the actuator all the way through the valve body.  Both ends are sealed with an o ring.  This allows the valve seats to be in both the upper and bottom chambers of the valve, allowing the seats to close against the flow at all times.  The result, no slamming!

You are going to pay a little more for the sansun sanitary divert valve than you would for the SSD05.  But isn’t that well worth it to keep your process lines from shaking all over the place?  We think so, considering excessive vibration can lead to instrument damage and inaccuracies.

The sansun sanitary valves are available in sizes 1” through 6”.  This is an extremely well built product.   The W60 valve is very modular.  All of the valve bodies are machined from bar, not castings.  This results in a very wide choice of configurations.  There are also multiple seat material options as well as a very large choice of controls/switch options. Control tops for the entire SSD05 series have also been modularized, with the SSD05 using the clear WCB top also found on the other SSD05 seat valves, the SSD15 mixproof valves, and even the 200 series butterfly valves.

So if you are looking to use automated seat valves in your process and you would prefer your pipes not to shake, consider the sansun when it comes to divert valves.  If you have questions on this topic or any other topic regarding sanitary process, contact one of our sales engineers.  We will do our best to help.