“This valve strikes a great balance between simplicity and innovation.

The distinctive curved profile of the valve seat where the diaphragm meets the valve body creates an easier path for water through the valve, reducing pressure loss and allowing the downstream irrigation system to reach operational flow rates more quickly. This subtle design improvement has an oversized impact on valve performance while keeping the simplicity and effectiveness of the 4-piece valve intact.”

says Adam Setzler, product manager for Toro’s Ag Business.

Advantages of the unique valve seat design include:

• Efficiency – The irrigation system operates more effectively with low opening pressure and minimal pressure loss due to the profile of the valve seat.
• Flexibility – reduced pressure loss allows for a wider operational range for each line size to incorporate into system design.
• Reliability – hydrodynamic valve seat and durable diaphragm eliminate vibration or distortion, extending the life of internal parts.

“Toro Ag’s foundation is built on our deep understanding of growers’ needs. That insight results in quality drip irrigation products that provide superior performance to help growers succeed.

We are confident that our new 900 Series Valve will be a game changer for farmers throughout the Americas, complementing our expanded portfolio of irrigation system solutions.”

affirms Ralf San Jose, director of marketing for Toro Ag Americas.

Source: Toro

The post Toro Sets a New Standard for Valves With the New 900 Series appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

 Anticipating tomorrow’s safety standards

Manufacturers of food and other hygienically processed products are already striving to attain high quality standards. They face the challenge of maintaining reproducible processes so that their products have the appearance, taste, and consistency that consumers expect. In the future, production conditions will be even more complex. Alternative resources and new processes, for example in the plant-based or New Food sector, call for even more comprehensive safety concepts.

“For these foods of the future, you also need factories of the future. Our new generation of valves is a key component in the production structure. By anticipating tomorrow’s safety standards, we are consciously relieving the burden on customers,”

explains Bastian Tolle, Vice President Product Management & Engineering, Valves & Pumps, GEA.

Preventing mixing when seals fail

GEA has designed the VARIVENT MX with elements that keep products from mixing with the cleaning liquid, even under exceptional loads. The cavity chamber is fitted with a vacuum self-drainage system and balancers on both valve disks. For maximum physical safety, GEA makes use of the Venturi effect: This is created by the special shape of the flow channels, which causes a vacuum on the opposite seal during lifting, preventing pressure increases. As a result, no cleaning liquid can enter the opposite pipe carrying the product while a valve seat is being lifted or cleaned, even if a seal is defective.

Double balancers prevent overpressure

When new systems are set up and adjusted in a short time, there is a higher risk of overpressure during operation. The valve disks must stay in place when these water hammers occur, and the valve must remain closed. For this purpose, GEA has equipped the valve disks in both pipelines with balancers – pressure compensators. This makes the closed valve resistant to water hammers up to 50 bar in the upper and lower pipelines. The new MX valve type also has an integrated balancer cleaning device. It ensures that the balancer is completely flushed from the outside during seat lifting at the same time as cleaning-in-place is realized. All surfaces in contact with the product can be cleaned without any additional components protecting the product from contamination.

Entire valve unit ensures process control

To ensure maximum control, GEA’s hygiene concept includes the entire valve unit, including the control top. By means of the GEA T.VIS control top, GEA integrates the double-seat valves into the automation concepts of the units. In this way, the operator can monitor the exact switching position of the valve at any time and be fully aware of the valve functions. This makes the processes even more reliable.

“So far, not all industries use this valve unit. Nevertheless, the digital monitoring and control functions are a basic prerequisite for Industry 4.0-capable production lines,”

valve expert Tolle points out.

GEA wants to encourage manufacturers to take this step because control tops have immense potential in the light of predictive maintenance and process sustainability. They would also help plant operators boost the traceability and verifiability of the hygienic process chain.

The post GEA Expands Varivent Valves Family Adding New Valves Generation appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Responsibility for process technology and safety

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ranks deficiencies in maintenance safety among the most common causes of accidents in plants. Above all where a number of people are working on one line, it is important to secure the area under maintenance against inadvertent intervention – for example, by means of seals – as the consequences for life and limb can be devastating.

“We hear about workplace accidents during maintenance all the time,”

explains Lisa Schmidt, Product Sales Manager for hygienic valve technology at GEA.

This is avoidable and can easily be prevented with a systematic LoTo approach. Since the solutions currently available were not convincing for GEA valves, the company decided to produce its own package of process technology and LoTo safety systems.

Says Schmidt:

“We consider it our responsibility to support our customers to the best of our ability when it comes to maintaining their duty of care toward their workforces.”

GEA’s customers – manufacturers in the food and pharmaceutical industries – operate complex plants with long lengths of piping where visibility is often an issue. If, for instance, machines are repaired during ongoing operation, it is important to specifically isolate these working areas from energy sources, i.e. sources of danger.

Schmidt reports:

“In our case, the danger lies in the media flowing through the pipelines. Specific valves or entire valve clusters can be secured using our LoTo solutions. One Canadian customer recently ordered 1,600 LoTo devices for all their plant’s butterfly valves, while other operators explicitly designate individual valves to eliminate specific potential hazards.”

Tailored LoTo devices for each valve

A GEA LoTo unit comprises a shut-off device that fixes the valve in the open or closed position and an optional lock that only authorized individuals can open. The type of fixing varies depending on the type of valve; they are available for all nominal diameters and actuator sizes and can easily be retrofitted:

• Butterfly valves can be shut off mechanically. The disk lock version uses a pin that is pushed into the valve stem and can also be used with an extension. This principle can similarly be applied to leakage butterfly valves.
• There are two ways of shutting off single-seat valves: Either the air supply can be shut off directly on the control top or actuator using the airlock principle, or the entire actuator can be locked via a disk lock which prevents the valve disks from moving. This is advisable where a higher level of safety is desired. In the event of a water hammer, the valve remains closed, ensuring an almost completely leak-proof system.
• GEA offers a bellow lock for VESTA valves in aseptic applications with manual actuators which is suitable for large and small nominal sizes.
• GEA LoTo solutions are generally designed for single-seat valves, but the main stroke in double-seat valves can also be locked. As VARIVENT and D-Tec valves with lift can still be actuated, the operator should consider using further safeguards here – for example, the air supply to the lifts.

The post GEA Ensures Safe Unit Maintenance through LoTo Principle for Valve Technology appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Operational safety enhanced through self-learning control systems

Looking ahead, digital valve control tops such as the T.VIS M-20 will be indispensable key components in processing plants.

“We are already bringing elements of the valve of the future to fruition. This reflects the growing demand among manufacturers for connectivity, handling, and process diagnostics across their entire product lines. That means plants today are increasingly exposed to even higher stress. Our GEA T.VIS M-20 counteracts this thanks to its shock-resistant design and built-in sensor technology. This helps operators ensure plant availability and quality through automatic, self-learning, reproducible process controls,”

says Bernd Porath, Product Manager for Valve Automation at GEA.

Customers are required to commission plants ever earlier, lines often run at full capacity, and product changes are made so rapidly that valves are subjected to pressure surges and vibration.

Automatic initialization for commissioning and under process conditions

To lighten plant operators’ workload during commissioning, the valve experts have integrated digital intelligence into the GEA T.VIS M-20 control top in the shape of a proprietary program code.

The Quick-Setup takes care of the entire commissioning process – including self-learning position recognition by the feedback systems – without the need for specially trained personnel. All that operators are required to do is assign the electrical and pneumatic connections. The built-in contact-free path measuring system detects its position with a precision of 50 µ – a much higher degree of accuracy than would be possible manually, says Porath. Under process conditions – following maintenance or replacement of the control top – the electronics automatically initialize the feedback systems.

The ease of installation has been confirmed in field tests at Arla Foods and Uckermärker Milch.

“Our customers were astounded and very pleased. The M-20 can be installed completely intuitively, without needing to rely on judgment or experience by the operating staff. We have considerably reduced the burden on operators by eliminating errors caused by different users entering different settings,”

reports Porath.

The modules were instantly up and running at the customers’ sites and have now been operating smoothly for months.

Improved protection against mechanical stress

In designing the M-20 control top, GEA placed emphasis on protecting each individual component and ensuring operational safety even under heavy use. The vibration and shock resistance of all components was increased to 10 g in accordance with IEC/EN 60068-2-6 and 27, double the level of the previous model.

“The path measuring system and control electronics are located on a combination printed circuit board, which is no longer encapsulated but openly integrated into the housing, as with our most sophisticated A-15 control top,”

explains Porath.

All components are also protected by the proven T-VIS housing technology at the highest level against dust and moisture applying the IP69k standard.

Lean portfolio and simple spare parts handling

GEA now covers the full spectrum of digital control top requirements for hygienic and aseptic valves with just two types: The new GEA T.VIS M-20 control top is optimized for most applications without additional monitoring requirements.

GEA’s butterfly valves, single- and double-seat valves, as well as valves with special functions and product recovery systems, can be fitted with the control top, including virtually the entire GEA VARIVENT and GEA Aseptomag valve series for hygienic and aseptic valves, respectively. All of the control top’s mechanical and electronic components are compatible with the associated GEA valve technology.

If more than two feedbacks and further monitoring functions via an IO-Link connection are required for double-seat valves with seat lifting, GEA’s portfolio offers the GEA T.VIS A-15 premium solution. Conveniently, GEA has designed standard pilot valves, switching rods, path measuring systems, and connections for both the M-20 and A-15 control tops. This standardization simplifies planning, servicing, and ensuring spare parts availability, particularly in the event of subsequent plant modifications.

Sustainability in tomorrow’s component design

With regard to further valve technology developments at GEA, Product Manager Bernd Porath reports:

“Plant uptime, robustness, and repeatability of processes and their components are all part of the overarching theme of sustainability, which is a huge concern for the industry. Optimally configured, durable process technology naturally plays a part in the smooth operation of our customers’ plants. We aim to show how digital control tops with sophisticated automated functions and feedback options can contribute to an improved climate footprint. We intend to capture additional functions within our valve range – from control to process diagnostics and predictive maintenance.”

The post GEA Presents New-Generation Valve Control Tops Enhance Operational Safety appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

At Atlantic Fluid Tech booth, visitors could watch their latest Corporate Video and browse through their Catalogue Abstract for Agricultural Machinery containing Overcentre Valves, Flow Control Valves, Proportional Valves, Diverter Valves, Directional Valves.

They have introduced their latest EB000090, a compact and easy-to-fit Directional Valve, flagship of their range dedicated to Agriculture, of premium Italian quality that can be mounted no matter on combine, fruit and grape harvesters, reach mowers, land preparation machines, spreaders and much more.

This new product stands for its amazing versatility, ease of installation as well as its value for money.

More about Atlantic Fluid Tech

Atlantic Fluid Tech was founded and is producing in Modena, in a land of excellence in mechanics and with a long tradition in the hydraulic field.

Research and Development are some of their strenghts. Over the last 9 years, the company has registered 16 European patents and has designed over 6000 new projects customized to customers’ needs.

They strongly believe in IT and Industry 4.0 principles applying advanced technology to company processes and manufcturing and this makes them one of the most dynamic and reliable manufacturer of Made-in-Italy hydraulic valves and integrated circuits.

Atlantic Fluid Tech has been producing hydraulic valves and components with high performance and quality standards in Modena since 1979. Today the company features about 300 employees, 6 production plants for an overall covered surface of 15,400 sqm, 6 subsidiaries in Japan, China, South Korea, France, United Kingdom and Holland and has built a widespread distribution network in the United States, Australia and many more countries, so to provide a closer technical and logistical support to its customers.

Source: Atlantic Fluid Tech

The post At Eima 2020 Atlantic Fluid Tech Launched Its New EB000090 Compact Directional Valve appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

Dan Jensen, Graco’s Lubrication Equipment Division Global Product Marketing Manager, said:

“With 17 available assemblies based on Graco’s CSP technology, the portfolio of options are compatible with most on-road truck and tractor configurations and are 30 percent lighter than the previous generation. The EZ Greaser platform makes it easy to upgrade to a fully-automatic lubrication system with the option of adding a pump such as the electric powered G-Mini pump or air-powered E-Series pump.”

The post Graco launches improved EZ greaser flow divider valve assemblies appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.