Pinch Valve Replacement Sleeves
Pinch Valves are a vital part to many industrial sites and parts of machinery. Even some of the smallest pieces of equipment have a Pinch Valve installed to control the flow of media or air. Pinch Valves are also used as an on/off function, to allow part of the media or air to pass through the bore in a controlled manner.
The rubber sleeve inside a Pinch Valve is the only wearable part of the whole valve. This means that the total cost of ownership is very low for this product. Unlike other conventional valve types such as gate valves and butterfly valves, the pinch valve does not require any additional seals, packing, gates or discs etc. Pinch valve replacement sleeves are easy to fit and replace, with lubricant paste or a fitting kit for larger sizes, but in most cases without the need of any special tools.
Sliding a replacement sleeve into the body of a Pinch Valve.
Types & Sizes of Pinch Valve Replacement Sleeves
Pinch valve replacement sleeves by AKO are available to fit the AKO Pinch Valves in sizes 10mm – 300mm nominal bore.
The types of high resilience elastomer rubber sleeve materials available are:
- Natural Rubber (black)
- Natural Rubber food quality (white on the inside)
- EPDM (black)
- EPDM food quality (white on the inside)
- Nitrile (black)
- Nitrile food quality (white on the inside)
- Silicon (red)
- Hypalon (black)
- Butyle (black)
- Neoprene (black)
- Viton (black)
Each pinch valve replacement sleeves material listed above is rated to 80’C, apart from EPDM which is rated to 120’C, and Silicon which is rated to 130’C.
These pinch valve replacement sleeves can also be specially manufactured to make them conductive for ATEX and EX areas and zones.
Pinch Valve Replacement Sleeves Fitting Process
To fit a new sleeve into an existing pinch valve, the old sleeve must be removed from the shell/body of the valve first. To do this, the two end connections either side of the body should be removed one at a time. The sleeve is then free to either be pushed or pulled out with ease. For larger sizes, the pinch valve replacement sleeves may benefit from being pulled out with tongs or pliers.
It is important that the new sleeve is fitted with a special lubricant paste to aid it into place easily. The end connections are then fitted back into place, and the lubricant paste should be left to dry overnight before the pinch valve is operated again. It is as simple as that!
For full detailed instructions please see how to maintain pinch valves.
