For many years, mineral processing plant operators have battled with leakage problems, searching for valves which will isolate the flow and prevent leaks to the atmosphere, but are often left feeling frustrated and out of pocket. External leaks from valves during valve cycling are common problems for plant operators around the world. These leaks can have disastrous consequences, contaminating the environment and endangering workers with hazardous materials, resulting in major down time for the company. Delta Industrial knife gate valves from Weir Minerals can guarantee plant operators in difficult process applications to have zero leakage, John Abbott, Weir Minerals Global Product Manager for Valves states. “This isolation is very important because it ensures safe and consistent plant operation, minimises downtime and provides lowest total ownership cost.”
“Our customers can install Delta Industrial valves into problem areas secure in the knowledge that they will achieve long term performance with exceptional isolation results, protecting their people, their plant and their environment,” Abbott continues. Protecting the environment and ensuring hazardous materials do not harm workers is of prime importance for every site around the world. Weir Minerals Delta Industrial guided shear gate valves are designed to repeatedly close and provide bi-directional zero leakage isolation no matter what the process fluid may contain. “Our knife gate valves guarantee no process will come past the closed valve, even abrasive slurry or when operating under high temperatures.”
Delta Industrial Valves, Inc. was founded in 1987 and the company began designing and manufacturing high quality knife gate valves in 1989. At the time, they recognised the urgent requirements within the market for a superior knife gate valve. “Weir Minerals acquired Delta Industrial Valves, Inc in July 2015, increasing our market presence in hard rock mining, oil sands, pulp and paper and power industries by expanding our portfolio of valve products. Weir Minerals is a global leader in the mining and oil sands markets and the acquisition of Delta Industrial Valves, Inc strengthens our comprehensive offering to customers with a range of high performance knife gate valves for heavy duty slurry application and high pressure environments.”
“Their construction provides a zero leakage guarantee to external environments due to their unique transverse seal design, couple this with Delta Industrial’s long history in the design and production of valves, it consistently proves to be one of the highest performing valves in these heavy duty applications.” The Delta Industrial shear gate design combined with its unique seating arrangement ensures exceptional pipeline isolation and zero leakage to the atmosphere, resulting in performance our customers can rely on every time the valve operates. “Although there are at least five distinct types of knife gate valves marketed in the industry, we only produce absolute knife gate valves in our Delta Industrial range, capable of cutting, shearing, and closing against solids while still producing a tight shut-off.”
The unique knife gate valve design is capable of offering the highest performance in the most severe applications where solids are in solution, suspension or both. “This makes it the world’s premium isolation valve for scaling applications where traditional valves are inoperable due to cementation or precipitation of solids.” Delta Industrial knife gate valves even operate in clear solutions, an area where traditional knife gate valves are not appropriate.
Abbott also says that they can design and build a tailored valve solution for customers if they have a special requirement, “providing them with a unique solution to their specific application. Our knife gate valves have demonstrated their ability to deliver low costs of ownership over the life of the valve, resulting in reduced downtime and increasing productivity for our customers. The valve manufacturing process employs tight tolerances and minimum clearances to ensure reliable performance and the longevity of the highly engineered product.”
“Within the oil sands sector, the Delta Industrial knife gate valves provide innovative, custom products that are well suited for the harsh process of this industry. The valves are heavily entrenched in the oil sands process, where performance is critical and leakage, both external and internal, cannot be tolerated.”
In hard rock mining, “a large international mining company was repairing a major valve on their tailings line every three months. This was proving to be extremely inefficient and costly. They asked us to help solve this problem which was costing them time and money. A Delta Industrial knife gate valve was specified and installed, this valve has now been operating for four years without any unscheduled maintenance.”
The team at Weir Minerals are currently working on complementing their range of ASME 600 rated valves. There are also developments currently being tested which will provide enhanced performance in high pressure applications. “We are all very excited about the product development and new design innovations to help our customers and cannot wait to see these unfold,” Abbott says.
