Various industries rely on valves to control the flow of gaseous or liquid materials. Some valve configurations may be employed to perform the required industrial operations. Some valves are multi-port and others have only two ports. Some industries require valves that may be sterilized while others may require abrasion resistance or chemical resistance. Various industrial processes require valves to be cleanable in-situ so as to minimize the down-time of a valved process line. Valves may be cleaned by flowing a cleaning solution through the valve. In some situations, the valve is actuated during cleaning in a manner that improves the cleaning efficiency.
Some valves have a dedicated seat lift actuator that may operate to move the valve between a closed position and a seat-lift position at a defined location between the closed and fully-open positions. This seat lift actuator, which may be a solenoid, for example, may facilitate cleaning by promoting turbulent flow of a cleaning solution. The seat-lift position may be a position that is “nearly” closed, but permits the cleaning solution to flow through a narrow gap between a valve seat and a valve disc. Turbulent flow may result from the narrow gap orifice. This narrow gap orifice may also minimize the amount of cleaning solution required for a thorough valve cleaning operation.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds