Advantages and disadvantages of ball valves

1、 Advantages:

(1) Has flow resistance (actually 0);

(2) Because it does not get stuck during work (in the absence of lubricants), it can be reliably applied to corrosive media and low boiling point liquids;

(3) Complete sealing can be achieved within a wide range of pressure and temperature;

(4) It can achieve fast opening and closing, with some structures having an opening and closing time of only 0.05~0.1 seconds, to ensure that it can be used in the automation system of the test bench. When quickly opening and closing the valve, there is no impact during operation.

(5) The spherical closure can automatically locate at the boundary position;

(6) The working medium is reliably sealed on both sides;

(7) When fully open and fully closed, the sealing surfaces of the ball and valve seat are isolated from the medium, so the medium passing through the valve at high speed will not cause erosion of the sealing surface;

(8) Compact in structure and lightweight, it can be considered as a valve structure for low-temperature medium systems;

(9) The valve body is symmetrical, especially the valve body structure, which can well withstand the stress from the pipeline;

(10) The closure component can withstand the high pressure difference during closure.

(11) The full body ball valve can be buried directly underground to prevent corrosion of the valve components, with a service life of up to 30 years. It is a valve for oil and gas pipelines.

2、 Disadvantages:

(1) Because the main valve seat sealing ring material of ball valves is polytetrafluoroethylene, it is inert to almost all chemicals and has comprehensive characteristics such as low friction coefficient, stable performance, low aging, wide temperature applicability, and excellent sealing performance.

However, the physical properties of polytetrafluoroethylene, including its high coefficient of expansion and thermal conductivity to cold flow, require the design of valve seat seals to revolve around these characteristics. So, when the sealing material becomes hard, the reliability of the seal is compromised.

Moreover, the temperature resistance level of polytetrafluoroethylene is relatively low and can only be used below 180 ℃. Beyond this temperature, the sealing material will age. Considering long-term use, it is generally only used at 120 ℃.

(2) Its regulating performance is relatively poor compared to globe valves, especially pneumatic valves (or electric valves).