An Upper Midwest water treatment plant was experiencing high failure rates, long maintenance periods, and too many repair issues with their existing pneumatic scotch-yoke cylinder valve operators.
Upon investigation, it was found that the scotch-yoke cylinder’s linear movement was being converted to rotational movement. To do so requires gearing, yokes and linkage, which are wear points. In the medium to high cycle rate applications, these wear points soon become failure points.
Kinetrol rotary vane actuators utilize a single moving part – the one-piece vane and shaft. There are no gears, yokes, or linkages and 100% of the movement is transferred to the actuator shaft. The one piece vane and shaft eliminates these wear points, and therefore eliminates the resulting failure points.
After a planning review meeting, the water treatment plant clearly saw the advantages of the Kinetrol design, and replaced its 60 scotch-yoke cylinder actuated valves with Kinetrol vane actuators in one fell swoop.
