Watson Grinding & Mfg. and Oil States Industries announce that their metal seated ball valve with tungsten carbide coating was unaffected by sand slurry test environment.
The 2-1/16” 5,000psi 4130 alloy steel ball valve with tungsten-carbide-coated ball and seat components spent approximately 50 hours in service. The API 6AV1 Class II test specification consists of 50 hours’ flow with a sand slurry media flowing through the valve, followed by 500 open/closed cycles with sand slurry flowing through. The acceptance criterion of zero leakage was met. Test media was a water/sand mixture with strict specifications for sand particle size, sand content and viscosity. Test temperature was ambient and pressure was 5000psi maximum.
The purpose of the R&D was to study the amount of leakage. This test was performed for no specific application; however, emergency shutdown valves (ESDVs) require this certification.