Vuoplan Oy has been working with different valve related projects and challenges for more than 10 years. We are able to work on all questions related on valves, let it be manual-, automated-, control- or shut-off valves or safety pressure valves.
Typically, we are helping our customers in challenging projects requiring more careful valve selection, or in maintenance related cases, solving challenging failure/damage cases of valves. Common for both is special knowledge on valve designs and -types, deep knowledge on material and coating selection for different flow media and practical knowledge on different damage mechanisms.
In both of these cases, expertise on technical purchasing is needed. Vuoplan Oy is able to help in all stage of a purchase - all the way from valve definitions in material requisitions to more complex technical purchase specification, defining in detail the products and deliveries and related special requirements of the purchase. Also, as a part of our comprehensive purchasing service, Vuoplan Oy also offers both desc and in-site expediting services at valve manufacturer to verify the actual quality and delivery status of the purchase. Depending of the case, this service can extend from small, couple hours assignment to bigger, green/brown field plant projects.
Case 1, Butterfly valves
The project specification defined the valves in a large stainless steel pipeline to be gate valves, based on earlier experience where the tightness of the valves was known to be adequate. We proposed to use metal seated butterfly valves in the same application, as the tightness of the valves were known to be equal (or actually even better) and the CAPEX was substantially less.
At the end, the total savings in purchase was more than 100 k€.
Case 2, Control valve trim upgrade
A customer had a globe type control valve which had to be maintained every 6 months of service, due to problems in control behavior. Investigation revealed, that the valve was from the beginning sized incorrectly to accommodate very big range of flow. Thus the flow capacity of the valve was far too big for normal service, resulting the opening of the valve to be very small - which, for it's part, caused very high flow speeds inside the valve. The high flow speed was able to cause erosive damage to valve trim, which finally prevented effective control of the valve.
Out of many possible solutions, Vuoplan Oy made suggestion to upgrade the valve trim to more alloyed material to compensate the erosive wear, as more importantly, this particular solution did not require expensive modifications to piping to be done. After the upgrade of the valve trim, the valve has been serviced only within the normal turnarounds of the process plant.