Half-Inch Needle Valve Boosts Reliability

Dec. 9, 2009

A novel new half-inch (12.7 mm) bore instrumentation needle valve gives plant engineers the means to improve reliability, and save both money and space, in process and instrumentation applications involving viscous and contaminated media. Today, such applications are often implemented using much larger and more expensive piping valves.

Believed to be the first of its type on the market, the half-inch needle valve has been developed by the instrumentation products division of Parker Hannifin - the global leader in motion and control technologies.

Parker's new H-series needle valve is available in two forms: as either a discrete hand valve for controlling media flow, or integrated into a monoflange-style manifold for the safe 'double-block-and-bleed' connection of instruments to process lines.

The large flow path of the half-inch H-series needle valve makes it much less prone to blockages or related problems when dealing with viscous and contaminated media. Such issues can lead to measurement errors, necessitating costly maintenance or even process shutdown while problems are fixed. The new valve also offers a metal-to-metal seal. This provides a bubble-tight shut-off mechanism and operation over a very wide temperature range of -55 to +538 degrees C in its standard stainless steel form.