• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.76-80
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• 2014

PFA fluoropolymer lined technology revolutionized ball valve development and design decades ago and continues to be pivotal for many products and valve solutions in diverse industries and applications, such as chemical process, semiconductor/LCD manufacturing processes, pharmaceutical and others. Because of the extreme operating conditions such as high-temperature (${\sim}120^{\circ}C$) and high-pressure (~10 bar), the reliability of the valve is very important for minimizing in-line leakage and fugitive emissions of strong corrosive chemicals (hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, nitric acid, etc.) transported through the lines. In this study, we investigated the flow characteristics with flow coefficient in a PFA lined ball valve for different opening degrees using CFD analyses. The results should be the guidance for a new PFA lined ball valve design that will incorporate all the acclaimed and demonstrated benefits of the current design approaches.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.39-42
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• 2016

A PFA lined ball valve, which is machined with fluorinated resin PFA to its inner part for improving corrosion resistance, non-stickness, heat-resistance, has been widely used to the chemical/pharmaceutical industries, the semiconductor/LCD manufacturing processes, etc. with the high purity chemicals as working fluid. EPA stated that 60% of all fugitive emissions come from the valve stem packing in a typical petroleum or chemical processing plant. They monitor regulated components for leaks and maintain seal performance at acceptable levels. Korean industrial standards only deals with the bubble test for in-line leakage of valves, which has the detectable leak rate of $10^{-4}$ [$mbar{\cdot}L{\cdot}s^{-1}$], therefore, it is not sufficient to check fugitive emissions. In this study, we conducted Helium leak detection from a PFA lined ball valve and evaluated fugitive emissions according to ISO 15848-1, which has the detectable leak rate of $10^{-9}$ [$mbar{\cdot}L{\cdot}s^{-1}$], for manufacturing the high-reliable PFA lined ball valves against fugitive emissions.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.35-38
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• 2016

A PFA lined ball valve, which is machined with fluorinated resin PFA to its inner part for improving corrosion resistance, non-stickness, heat-resistance, has been widely used in semiconductor/LCD manufacturing processes with the high purity chemicals as working fluid. Due to the safety concerns, the experiments for measuring the flow coefficient of a PFA lined ball valve should be conducted with water at room temperature according to IEC standards. However, it is required to know the real flow coefficient with the real working fluid, because the flow coefficient is critical to correctly design valves in piping system. In this study, we calculated the flow coefficient of a PFA lined ball valve 40A with hydrochloric acid ($40^{\circ}C$ 36% HCl) as the working fluid using a commercial CFD package, ANSYS CFX v15. The computational results had a good agreement with the measured data and showed a little difference between water and hydrochloric acid as the working fluid of a PFA lined ball valve.