An advanced anti-cavitation control valve design enabled by 3D metal printing solved a power plant’s severe cavitation problem and dramatically improved its bottom line.
Applications with very high pressure drops often create control valve problems, requiring solutions created by combining innovative valve design and advanced metallurgy. These issues are even more pronounced in a power plant where magnetite (iron oxide) is often present in boiler feedwater (BFW) systems. In these cases, the damage caused by cavitation is compounded by erosion and plugging created by the magnetite.