About Ball Valve Balls /Spheres Process

About Ball Valve Balls /Spheres Process 

In China, There are mainly three ways to produce the ball valve balls / spheres , which is  one of the main components for the ball valves, Do you know the advantages and disadvantages ? Let's have a look. 

(1) By Casting 

      This is a traditional processing method. It requires a complete set of smelting, pouring and other equipments, and it also requires a larger plant and more workers. The factory investment is larger and the production process is complicated, what's more it pollutes the environment.  And the casting ball quality depends on the each step of the technical skills of the different worker during the whole process, There will be some pore leakages in the balls and it can not be completely solved, and the machining allowance is big ,so does the waste. It is obviously that some of the balls are rejected during the process if any casting defects, and it definitely affect the cost of the ball valve, as the quality control can not be guaranteed, So this way of processing is out of date now. 

(2)By  Forging 

      This is another method used by many domestic valve companies at present. It has two processing methods: one is to cut and heat forge into a spherical solid blank with round steel, and then perform mechanical processing. The second is to mold the circular stainless steel plate on a large press to obtain a hollow hemispherical blank,  and then welded into a spherical blank for mechanical processing. This method has a higher material utilization rate, but a high-powered The press, heating furnace, and argon welding equipment are estimated to require an investment of 3 million RMB to form productivity. 

(3) By Spinning 

      The metal spinning method is an advanced processing method with less and no chips. It belongs to a new branch of pressure processing. It combines the technological characteristics of forging, extrusion, rolling and rolling, and has high material utilization (up to 80-90%). ), saving a lot of processing time (1-5 minutes forming), the strength of the material can be doubled after spinning. Due to the small area contact between the rotating wheel and the workpiece during spinning, the metal material is in a two-way or three-way compressive stress state, which is easy to deform, and a higher unit contact can be obtained under a small power.

What do you think ?