A COATING FOR OPTIMUM VALVE PERFORMANCE

Do you have problems with excessive wear, corrosion or galling in your valve applications? Are traditional coating methods not achieving the results you would like? Or are lead times an issue? If so, then Hardide, a new and innovative hard facing coating, might just be the answer. Hardide is a unique ultra-hard, tough and chemical resistant tungsten-carbide based component coating which has proven highly successful in valve applications. It has been developed by Hardide Coatings Limited which has manufacturing plants in Bicester, Oxfordshire, UK and Houston, Texas, USA. The nano-structured binder-free coating, which doesn’t require grinding, can also coat out-of-sight surfaces and internal diameters e.g. valve bodies, connectors, and female threads on slabs for gate valves. Hardide has proven to be extremely successful in ½" to 8" bore ball valve, as well as needle and gate valve applications. It is also proven for valve components including stems, balls, seats, bodies (internals), connectors (internals). As Hardide is a batch process and no post grinding is required on ball valves (only polishing), lead-times from uncoated to finished product are short; on average three weeks for ball valves. A lapping service is also available to ball valve customers, and balls and seats can be lapped as a matched set.Hardide’s unique properties include:
1300 - 1600 Hv
accurately controlled thickness ranging from 5 to 100 microns, with a typical valve coating of 40 - 50 microns
resists 3000 microstrain deformation without damage to the coating
superior bond strength due to chemical bond
low coefficient of friction making valve operation easier
can be used against itself without galling concerns
can be used in conjunction with HVOF

Robin Gillham, Business Development Manager for Valves at Hardide Coatings said: "Hardide offers unique advantages for valve applications. In particular, our one stage in-house finishing means we can offer very quick turnaround times with no risk of particle pullout and no grinding stresses. The smoothness and uniformity of the coating also facilitates polishing. The coating has been consistently proven to outperform traditional hard coatings in industry standard tests including NACE TM0177, ASTM G65 and ASTM G75,"added Mr Gillham. Hardide is in commercial use around the world with valves operating in oil & gas facilities (downhole and topside), petrochemical refineries, food manufacturing, cryogenic equipment and power generation. W: www.hardide.com E: rgillham@hardide.com T: +44 (0)1869 353830 (UK & Europe)

Published: 25th September 2009