Ball valves use a simple design based on a ball or sphere that is ported or drilled out to provide a flow path for gases and liquids moving through the valve. These ported valve balls are attached to handles that require only a quarter turn to allow full flow or shut off the flow, but they are unsuitable for throttling flow. The ball valve design creates a relatively low pressure drop across the valve.

Miniature ball valves come in a wide selection of specifications and options. These choices provide the flexibility to ...

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This post is about inline direct-acting miniature check valves. These are not pilot-operated valves. Instead, they use a simple flexing or moving part, the sealing element, to prevent backflow. The force of the media (gas or liquid) flowing in the system pushes against the sealing element to open the valve (downstream flow) or close the valve (upstream flow) with or without the aid of an internal spring.

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Compliant Fuel Shut-Off Valves and Plastic Fuel Filters

Fuel system components for outdoor power equipment

Why check valve cracking pressure is such a critical specification

What is check valve cracking pressure? Cracking pressure is the minimum upstream pressure required to open a check valve enough to allow detectable flow. Detectable flow is when the check valve allows a small but steady flow of liquid or gas to pass through the valve body and out through its outlet port.

A check valve’s cracking pressure is a technical specification and is usually provided as psi or psig (pounds per square inch or pounds per square inch gauge) or bar (the metric equivalent of psi and psig) or ...

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Why stainless steel?

Stainless steel is a steel and so it is typically very strong. This gives it great pressure and temperature resistance. It is also a tougher, more durable metal than cast iron, ductile iron, brass or copper.

Stainless steels get their name from the fact that they are very corrosion resistant. This plus toughness and strength make them a preferred  ...

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Flow through three-way ball valves

Two-way and three-way ball valves are the most common types of ball valves. Three-way ball valves are especially useful because they can be set up in ways that simplify the control of gas and fluid flow. For example, they can be used to divert the flow of oil from one tank to another.

Our online and PDF flow control valve catalogs provide access to a wide variety of miniature valve types, connection types, materials and ....

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Choose the right valve means answering key questions first

Knowing what makes a valve the right choice

Valves control gas and liquid flow in almost every process and system. As common as they are, choosing the right valve can sometimes be time consuming and confusing.

Begin valve selection by first gathering some basic information on system performance requirements. Knowing this will make it easier to find the right valve. The five tips in this article focus on how to match valve features with these requirements...

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A look at the brasses used to make miniature ball and check valve bodies

Brass miniature valves are useful, reliable and economical
Wrought brasses, alloys of copper and zinc, are frequently used as the body material for metal mini check valves and ball valves. A major reason for this is brass performs well at temperatures ranging from about -325 to 425 °F (-198 to 218°C).

Equally important, the brass alloys used to make valve bodies can be quickly and accurately shaped using automated machining techniques. The result is that  ...

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Some guidelines for selecting the right material for your application

This is the first in a new series of ISM blog posts about miniature valves and ball valves in particular.

Why use a ball valve?
Ball valves are durable, reliable and securely shut off flow even after sitting idle for long periods of time. Because of this, they are frequently used as fluid and gas flow cut-off valves. Ball valves are also easy to operate. This plus their availability in a range of useful material options has led to ...

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New from ISM Design - Pressure relief valves for inline flow and low clearance areas

NRV and NVRT plastic air and gas pressure relief valves
The featured new products in this post are the NRV nylon relief valves and NVRT inline relief valves. They are designed for pressure relief venting of gases, gas mixtures or vapors that do not represent health or safety risks and are not reactive under normal atmospheric conditions*.

NRV and NVRT pressure check valve performance ...

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One-way foot valves with built-in 40 mesh strainers prevent coarse particle contamination

About the CVSF valved suction strainer
Our featured new product is the CVSF series of valved suction strainers, also called suction filters or foot valves. The design of these valved strainers is a spring loaded ball check valve combined with a 40 mesh stainless steel domed strainer.

The CVSF series strainers come in Kynar, Nylon, polypropylene and ...

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Full port ball valves provide almost no resistance to flow through the valve

Summary: The flow path through a full port valve body is the same size as the flow coming into the valve and leaving it via its tube or pipe connections. Standard port valves have smaller bodies overall with a corresponding narrowing inside the valve body.

Introduction
Questions about the differences between full port or full bore valves and standard valves come up pretty regularly for us. I am going to try to answer  ...

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