Valve & Actuator lifetime

[MercedesLopez]

Hello the Community,

Recently involving in mechanical designs, I am amazed by the fact that mechanical pieces are intended to wear down.

Could you please indicate me what is the lifetime of the Valve and Actuator product line?

Best regards

Mercedes

[CraigEl · Accepted solution]

Like all things that move, there will always be some wear and tear. Our factory testing is typically 100,000 cycles or more but lifetime is completely dependent on the installed environment. Below is some information we supplied to a customer asking about valve stem seal life recently:

Valves can last for many decades of use so long as the hydronic demands are light and well within specifications. However, a media solution that is aggressive to the materials of construction or contains contaminants, no matter how small can degrade the life of the valve and any moving sealing methods.

The gland seal on control valves are serviceable items but due to the variability of application, it is not possible to provide a life estimate on the gland seal, due to the wildly varying HVAC demands, not only in media solutions, working pressures and velocities, but also in duty cycles from any control loop. The service duration may be anything from one year to five or more depending on the duty.

I have seen many valves and actuators that continue to operate satisfactorily 20 years or more after their installation.