Regular maintenance of industrial valves is crucial for extending their lifespan and ensuring operational safety in the facilities. Such a maintenance task was recently undertaken at a heating plant in Berlin. This involved inspecting, repairing, or even replacing various industrial valves. Some valves were serviced directly on-site, while others had to be partially or fully dismantled and processed with specialized machinery.
The maintenance work was carried out by a service team from ARTES Valve & Service GmbH. The focus was on minimizing the effort required for the complete maintenance of each valve. To achieve this, the valve manufacturer used highly specialized machining tools, allowing most of the refurbishments to be conducted directly on-site. Other valves were dismantled and serviced in a workshop container on the power plant site.
The main tasks involved processing sealing surfaces on flange connections and internal sealing surfaces on shut-off and control inserts for power plant valves. The ARTES service technicians relied on the machines and expertise of EFCO Maschinenbau GmbH.
Refurbishment Instead of Replacement
The portable lapping and grinding machine SL-15.02 is particularly suitable for refurbishing the internal sealing surfaces in gate valves and check valves. Once the machine is positioned, the grinding process is carefully monitored to ensure a perfectly flat and thus tightly sealed surface.
The high-speed precision grinding machine for valves and flanges, VSA-1, is used for heavily worn valve seats. The range of available grinding tools and a maximum immersion depth of 650 millimeters allow the service to refurbish severely damaged surfaces, cylindrical bores, or conical sealing surfaces. A service technician precisely positions the machine with a clamping device in height and centering to work in the depths of the partially dismantled valve. The pneumatic drive provides powerful performance with a pressure of 6 to 7 bar.
For particularly demanding surface treatments, the service staff used the portable lapping and grinding machine SL-2 with an eccentric grinding head SL-A. The oppositely rotating grinding rotors produce an extremely precise cross-grind. This ensures that the sealing surfaces of the middle section of a high-pressure gate valve are ground without damage to form and position with the required surface quality. The valve then regains its original performance parameters and can be used without restrictions.
For larger material removal during maintenance tasks, ARTES relies on the portable external clamping flange turning machine TDF-1A. This robust tool with an integrated adjustment system can be mounted directly on the flange and is characterized by high stability even with larger material removal. This machine type features an additional manual axial feed of 30 mm, making TDF-A machines particularly suitable for turning all types of sealing grooves. The tool holder accommodates square standard turning tools, and the machines can be additionally equipped with an angular turning head.
Operators at the heating plant do not need to install new valves but can focus on refurbishing the existing stock. Therefore, maintenance work on industrial valves is essential from an ecological perspective as well.
