Our facility has a fermentation harvest header (6" diameter) that links 10 fermenters together and ties into off of each vessel's dropcock. The harvest header was originally designed to be cleaned via a hypo flush after each batch. The header is oriented such that 6" butterfly valves allow you to isolate the required portion of the header for the hypo wash. The hypo system has since been eliminated and the harvest header has been cleaned by flushing it with potable/process water. Due to contamination issues the idea of using steamlock on the header has been introduced. One of the more senior engineers recommended that we stay away from this idea because, "the steam will chew up the butterfly valves". The steam is medium pressure ~60psi. "Chewing-up" is probably not the best description of what would happen with the butterfly valve (unless your colleague had something very specific on his mind), but certainly butterfly valves are far away from being the best choice in providing isolation in gas/vapor services. I will chew-up my ChE Diploma if someone proves the opposite. A leaking butterfly valve, coupled with wet steam and solid particles (if present in the header) would erode the valve further. Perhaps your friend was thinking in that direction.

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