Original designs of knife gate valves
Original designs of knife gate valves can be traced back to tools
which consisted of a gate, parallel sides and a pressure that was placed
into a main pipe line. The purpose of these valves was to shut off the
flow of liquids by use of the pressure on the upstream side of the
valve. Fluid pressure was vital in order to create the required force in
which to seal the valve. Various methods had been developed in the past
to achieve this, in which the gate would be mechanically pushed against
both faces to create a tight seal. This then resulted in the valve
action being independent of the pipe line pressure.
During the mid 1860’s, a Mr. Chapman was chopping wood at his home.
His attention was soon drawn to the head of his axe, in particular, its
shape. This humble beginning soon evolved into the solid wedge gate
valve which is used throughout various industries in modern today. In
the following years, many attempts were made to combine the advantages
of the solid wedge and double disk gate valve together. Eventually, a
proven design emerged, which became known as the ‘split wedge’. The
advantage of the split wedge design is that although more costly, it has
the advantage of being self adaptable to the limited amounts of
distortion which is created by strain in the pipe line. In addition, it
provides a unique advantage for special installations where it is used
to seal a space between the seals with inert gases or steam.
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