Going International With Your Design - Solenoid Operated Valves

Industrial Solenoid Valve
Emerson - ASCO

It's no secret to you, Engineer, that the world is densely populated with standards and approvals. No matter where you live or work, the process equipment designs that flow from your workstation, your team, your company, are more likely than ever to end up on foreign shores.

Solenoid operated valves are ubiquitous, even a little mundane in their apparent simplicity, but still require expertise for proper specification and application. The jurisdictional requirements for a valve assembly applied in the same manner can vary from one country to another. This can be especially important when designing equipment or processes that may be installed in different parts of the world, such as United States and European Union production plants of a single company.

Fortunately, many manufacturers now provide valves with multiple approvals from around the world to facilitate the use of a single component across a wide geographic and jurisdictional range. Even with this accommodation, it is still the specifying engineer’s responsibility to select the correct valve, not only for the application, but for a regulatory environment that is populated with standards and approvals that can be difficult to coordinate with confidence. One prominent valve brand, ASCO, provides a white paper that delivers some insight into navigating this challenge, outlining an array of international approval agencies and providing a clear explanation of how T-codes (temperature codes) vary between US and EU agencies. The white paper is included below, a must-read for any engineer specifying or servicing solenoid valves.

Share your process control valve requirements and challenges with product application experts. Their expertise and your process knowledge, when combined, will deliver effective solutions.

Asco solenoid valve temperature code explanation whitepaper from Classic Controls, Inc.

Classic Controls Value Added Services

Valve automation and repair specialists
Classic Controls 

Classic Controls, in addition to being a distributor of industrial process measurement and control gear, also provides a range of value added services to its customers.

The company has the resources to manage and perform a wide range of projects involving process instrumentation, controls, and systems integration. Experienced technicians, engineers, and managers can complete projects of almost any size.

Classic Controls is a selected Yokogawa Vigilant Plant Solutions Partner, a status not easily achieved. This affords the company the training and resources needed to deliver best in class service to customers.

As a GE Masoneilan Authorized Repair Center (MARC), Classic Controls combines quality products with the maintenance of expert level service capabilities for these industrial valves.

Classic Controls provides an extensive valve automation center capability, with experienced technicians and engineers to deliver a complete valve automation package.

Reach out to Classic Controls with your process control challenges and requirements. Combine their experience and expertise with yours to produce successful project completions.

Yokogawa VigilantPlant Solutions Partner from Classic Controls, Inc.

Comparison of Industrial and Commercial UPS

Uninterruptible Power System
Ametek - Solidstate Controls

In our hyper-paced digital age, maintaining a continuous supply of clean electrical power is a key element of facility operation. The microprocessors embedded in most modern devices, coupled with organizational financial pressures to limit losses and downtime, create an environment where an uninterruptible power system is an easily justifiable design inclusion, if not a necessary one.

Commercial installations of UPS may have somewhat differing overall requirements from units placed in industrial service. Ametek Solidstate Controls, a recognized manufacturer of specialized uninterruptible power systems for a broad array of applications, authored a white paper outlining the terms used to describe UPS and the differences between units slated for industrial and commercial applications. The paper delivers some depth and insight on the subject and will likely boost your understanding of the equipment and the concept of an uninterruptible power system.

More information is available from product application specialists, with whom you should share your power system requirements and challenges to develop effective solutions.

Comparison of Commercial vs Industrial UPS from Classic Controls, Inc.

High Performance Butterfly Valves Meet Special Application Challenges

High Performance
Butterfly Valve
ABZ Valve

Industrial process control applications can present stringent and challenging performance requirements for the physical equipment and components that comprise the process chain. The valves employed in fluid based operations need to be resistant to the impact of extreme fluid conditions, requiring careful design and selection consideration to assure proper performance and safety levels are maintained in a predictable way.

Industrial valves intended for extreme applications are generally referred to as severe service or high performance valves. While there are plenty of published and accepted standards for industrial valves, one does not exist to precisely define what constitutes a severe service valve.

So, how do you know when to focus valve selection activities on severe service or high performance valves, as opposed to those rated for general purpose? There are a number of basic criteria that might point you in that direction:

• Extreme media or environmental temperature or pressure
• High pressure drop operation that may cause cavitation
• Rapid or extreme changes to inlet pressure
• Certain types or amounts of solids contained in the fluid
• Corrosive media

Certainly, any of these criteria might be found in an application serviceable by a general purpose valve, but their presence should be an indicator that a closer assessment of the fluid conditions and commensurate valve requirements is in order. The key element for a process stakeholder is to recognize when conditions are contemplated that can exceed the capabilities of a general purpose valve, leading to premature failure in control performance or catastrophic failure that produces an unsafe condition. Once the possibility of an extreme or challenging condition is identified, a careful analysis of the range of operating conditions will reveal the valve performance requirements.

There are numerous manufacturers of severe service or high performance valves, each with specialized product offerings focusing on a particular performance niche. ABZ Valve manufactures high performance butterfly valves ranging from 2-48 inches and 150-600 psi. The valve design is ideal for manual or automated actuation, installed with a manual hand gear, electric actuator, or a pneumatic actuator. Seats are available as soft, metal, and fire safe, and body types include wafer, double flanged, and butt-welded. Construction materials include carbon steel and 316 stainless steel. A range of options and variants are available to customize the valve build to suit a replacement or new installation.

More information about the ABZ  Valve high performance offering is included below. You can always get more information and discuss your special requirements with a valve specialist. They have application experience and access to technical resources that can help with selecting the right valve components to meet your severe service and high performance applications.

Double Offset High Performance Butterfly Valves from Classic Controls, Inc.

Magnetic Liquid Level Gauges in Industrial Settings

Magnetic liquid level gauge combined with
guided wave radar in a single assembly
Vega Americas

Magnetic liquid level gauges are an excellent alternative to sight glass level gauges for many process measurement applications. Their reliable performance and adaptability to process requirements has made them a primary choice in the industrial arena.

Essentially, a magnetic level gauge or magnetic level indicator, is a sight glass with enhancements that provide better readability and a form factor enabling the inclusion of additional level monitoring functions on the same device. Where a sight glass requires operator proximity to read liquid level, the magnetic level gauge's indicating scale, or flags, can be clearly viewed from a considerable distance. A sight glass gauge can also be hindered by difficulties in visually determining liquid level because of deterioration of the glass surface or physical properties of the liquid. Magnetic level gauges remove the need to observe the liquid directly by incorporating a float device within a tube connected to the liquid containing vessel. As the float moves in response to liquid level changes, its magnet causes the indicator flags on the scale to rotate and display either a black face, indicating no liquid present at that position, or a colored face.

Magnetic level indicators or gauges can be modified with a range of options, including armored casings to protect the tube and float arrangement and limit switches to signal attainment of predetermined liquid levels. Combining a magnetic level indicator with another level measurement technology, such as guided wave radar or magnetostrictive, in a single assembly can provide an analog process signal representing continuous liquid level and serve as a redundant measuring device for critical applications.

The document included below provides illustrated detail about the devices and their proper application. There is more detail available, so share your process measurement requirements and challenges with instrumentation experts. The combination of your process knowledge and their product application expertise will produce effective solutions.

Combination magnetic and guided wave radar liquid level indicator from Classic Controls, Inc.

Accurate Measurement of Low Flow In Compressed Air Systems

Air compressors can incur significant operating costs.
Minimizing system leaks reaps savings.

Plant operators are well aware of the cost associated with continuous delivery of  compressed air, a useful medium utilized as an energy source. Large or multiple compressors consume considerable amounts of electric power maintaining system pressure and flow requirements. With extensive piping and countless fittings, there are many potential points of leakage. Scheduling of various production operations can vary the demand for compressed air significantly. Getting control of your compressed air system and reducing operating cost is a noble goal. One of the primary tools needed to manage energy costs will be accurate and reliable flow measurement equipment. Here are some characteristics of flow measurement instrumentation that should prove advantageous:

Portable Ultrasonic Flow Measurement Instrument
Flexim

• Non-invasive measurement from the outer pipe wall that does not add potential leak sources or pressure drop.
• Availability in fixed or portable configuration.
• Highly accurate, with paired temperature compensated traceable calibrated transducers
• Installed without disturbance to piping.
• Bidirectional measurement
• Rugged instrument design suitable for any kind of industrial environment

Ultrasonic flow measurement technology can provide all of these characteristics, providing
information that enables the operator to make fact based decisions about system design, management, and maintenance. Learn more about how ultrasonic flow meters specifically configured for compressed air system application can help you start reducing your operating cost and developing a higher level of control over your compressed air system. Share your process challenges with a product specialist and work together to build the best solution.

Portable flow meter for measurement of compressed air, gases, and heat quantitites from Classic Controls, Inc.

New Website For Classic Controls

Home page on Classic Controls new website

Classic Controls, distributor of industrial process measurement and control equipment and instruments throughout Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean, has a new website that is live now. The new site provides simple and rapid access to Classic Controls' represented lines and products, as well as the company's social media outlets, all organized in an intuitive and useful fashion to save users time in their search for solutions.

Visit the new site and see the products and capabilities of Classic Controls.