A Brief History of the Valves

Valves are popular and widely used in the industrial process, as well as in our daily life. We would be familiar with them used for LPG stoves and water faucet for our daily use. And considering the various machines, such as gas engines, compressors, pumps and vehicles, the indispensable parts are the valves.

About 4000 years ago, Chinese people had learnt to use something like bamboo or cork in the water pipe to control the flow of the water. And with the development of the Smelting technology and hydraulic machinery, the corks are replaced by the plug made of copper in Europe. With the wide use of boiler, lever and weight safety one came into being in 1681. Furthermore, the invention of steamer leads it to be applicable in mechanical industry. At this time, butterfly and slide valve are used to regulate the flow and meet the higher requirements. Afterward, the stop valves with a threaded stem and gate valves with a trapezoidal threaded stem are invented to adapt to the more and more complex working conditions. And the World War I brings in a lot of new technologies, proposing the production of valves in to a new stage.

Generally speaking, they are the devices used to control the flow rate, pressure or direction flow of the liquids, gases, gas-liquid mixtures or solid-liquid mixtures. It commonly consists of valve body, bonnet, seat, hoist parts, drive mechanism, seals and fastening parts.

According to the functions, valves are divides into six categories: cut-off valves, control valves, check valves, dividing valves, safety valves and multi-purpose valves. They hold their own specification respectively. Cut-off valves are mainly used for fluid pathway, while control valves are primarily for regulating the fluid pressure, flow, etc. And check valves affects well in preventing the reverse flow of fluid. Dividing valves are employed for the distribution of the flow into two-phase separated directions. And definitely, the safety valves are designed from the consideration to ensure the security in working process. At last, multi-purpose valves are valves with more than one function.

It is wise to choose the proper valves mainly basing on the consideration of the specifications. Each type and material holds its advantages and disadvantages. Think twice before you make decision. And with the quick development of the modern nuclear industry, petrochemical industry, electronic industry and aerospace industry, the demands and requirement for the valves will be keeping getting higher. Perhaps, it is a chance to produce valves aiming to the idea of energy saving, labor saving and automation.