What used to be a problem for someone else to worry about is proving to be a concern that can no longer be ignored by anyone.

A walk through a typical valve distributor’s warehouse will yield a contrasting view of either silver or black products. These two colors have been nearly exclusive for iron and steel valves for the last 75 years. The iron valve is painted black, while the steel valve is silver. Stainless valves are generally not painted at all, unless the end user decides to do so for some special reason.

Process instrumentation is an integral part of any process industry because it allows real time measurement and control of process variables such as levels, flow, pressure, temperature, pH and humidity. With the right instrumentation, process plants can run effectively, efficiently, economically and safely through the integration of alarm signals.

Because of the difficulties of dealing with slurry as a medium, the equipment assigned to move it along faces many challenges. One that gets lost among a host of others for slurry valves is packing. While packing-less valves (such as pinch valves) exist, most valves have a stuffing box and need packing to create a seal against the stem or gate. Proper packing selection, failure analysis and installation procedures are critical to the leak-free operation of valves.