Improved wear resistance

New Isogate^® WR knife gate valve

The Isogate^® WR knife gate valve has been optimised to deliver longer wear life, while considerably less than other slurry valves

The valve’s thin gate and guide system reduces discharge on cycling

T‌he lightweight, long-lasting Isogate^® WR knife gate valve comprises stronger materials, includes a thinner gate, and advanced rubber technologies offering improved resistance to wear. Weir Minerals presented the Isogate^® WR knife gate valve, which offers miners and aggregates operators alike a step change in valve performance. Incorporating the latest advances in design and materials technology from Weir Minerals’ expert engineers, the range of Isogate^® WR knife gate valves are more reliable, while producing minimal fluid discharge and weighing considerably less than equivalent mining valves.

“Drawing on decades of wear analysis, we’ve optimised the Isogate WR knife gate valve’s body design, by reinforcing the areas subjected to the harshest wear and pressure. At the same time, we’ve reduced the weight elsewhere to produce a robust, long-lasting mining valve that’s significantly lighter than comparable products”, says John Abbott, Global Product Manager – Valves & Tailings.

“The weight reduction can be especially significant in situations where a number of valves are used on a specific installation, such as in a hydrocyclone cluster, or where lightweight piping systems are used,” says John Abbott. The gate has also been redesigned, with stronger materials resulting in a thinner gate that can still withstand the pressure of mining slurries. This combines with the valve’s unique gate guide that reduces deflection by ensuring smooth gate movement and less stress on the sleeve elastomer during blade transition.

The Isogate^® WR knife gate valve utilises Weir Minerals’ new Isogate^® WSL sleeve, which uses the proprietary Linard^® HD 60 silica-reinforced natural rubber to solve the three most common problems with sleeved knife gate valves: leakage during cycling, tearing and load distribution ring (LDR) failure due to corrosion and erosion.

Leveraging the Linard^® HD 60 rubber’s high resilience against cut, tear and abrasive wear to improve wear life, the new Isogate^® WSL sleeve fully encloses the LDR to prevent corrosion. By allowing the rubber to move as with the blade cycles, the design reduces the chance of tearing while reducing slurry discharge by up to 75 %.

The Isogate^® WSL sleeve can also be used in existing Isogate^® WS knife gate valves, improving wear life and decreasing discharge on cycling. “When designing the Isogate WR knife gate valve, we focused on features that improve the everyday experience of working with our valves. This includes important things like improved grease distribution and improved body flushing when used on high solids concentration applications. In-depth finite element analysis (FEA) enables us to ensure the product’s integrity, while making it lightweight. There are also a lot of smaller features to make life easier, such as a larger grease reservoir, ISO mount standardisation and an external visual indicator for the valve’s status,” says John Abbott. Isogate^® WR knife gate valves and Isogate^® WSL knife gate sleeves are now available worldwide.