Over the years the butterfly valve has evolved to meet certain requirements, but users have always had to compromise in terms of overall performance. Engineers have now created a butterfly valve design that provides both cavitation control on opening as well as full flow performance.
The development of the butterfly valve started with the very simple concentric design, the resilient (rubber) seated butterfly valve. This concentric valve design can be traced back more 100 years. This design could only be made tight by using resilient seats. The single-offset butterfly valve was introduced around 1950 and did not become very popular despite the fact it could be used with metal seals. The first friction-free butterfly design became a possibility when the double-offset design was invented around 1960.
To receive a PDF copy of the full article By Gregor Gaida of KU V-AXX, please contact Sarah Bradley (s.bradley@kci-world.com)