Valves that last longer and require little maintenance help save money, prevent downtime and keep plant production on schedule. Without routine maintenance and quality checks, anything can go wrong with your ball valve, resulting in equipment failure, damaged parts, or worker injury. The worst-case scenario on the factory floor is a preventable accident that results in injury or expensive repairs. Maintenance specialists properly trained in evaluating ball valves can easily and early identify potential problems, reducing the chance of emergency repairs or OSHA violations. When it comes to plant safety, properly installed and maintained ball valves can prevent any dangerous leaks in piping or processing systems.

Downtime is expensive because any time your plant isn't producing is a waste of money or lost revenue. Some ball valve maintenance can even be performed while the valve is running, allowing plant production to continue uninterrupted. Just as increased uptime means increased revenue, fewer maintenance issues can put more money in your pocket. Spend less money on unplanned repairs or replacements when ball valves are regularly inspected, maintained, and replaced on a projected schedule. Many ball valve manufacturers provide estimates of ball valve life expectancy, and proper maintenance can certainly extend this range.

However, the service life of a ball valve can be affected by a variety of other factors. While some ball valves are manually actuated, many are operated by automatic actuators. Depending on the expected cycle speed of your system, you can choose from pneumatic (pneumatic), electric (motorized) or hydraulic (fluid power) drive. By choosing the right power supply for your application, you can reduce maintenance costs, increase uptime and maximize safety. If you have access to compressed air, pneumatically actuated ball valves are the most durable option for high pressure environments. In most cases, the actuators will outlive the ball valves they control.

Ball Valve are available in one-piece, two-piece and three-piece designs, the first two of which do not allow maintenance and must be replaced in the event of a component failure. However, the design of the three-piece ball valve allows the seat and seal to be removed and replaced quickly and easily without removing the entire valve from the system. If the valve is made of durable materials, the ability to replace parts means that three-piece ball valves can last longer than their one- and two-piece ball valves. For this reason, three-piece ball valves are better suited for high-cycle and high-pressure applications that subject the sealing components to a lot of wear. Seals are often the first parts in a ball valve to fail because they are made of a much softer material than the valve body. One-piece and two-piece ball valves must be replaced when seals expire, while three-piece ball valves can easily replace seals without completely removing the valve.