Development of High Erosion-Resistant Gate Valve for Geothermal Gathering System

Abstract

Gate valve is widely used in many fields because of its high shut-off character, low pressure drop with full opening and relatively low cost. In geothermal gathering system, it is required to control the flow rate with the opening from the small to the half during the well test, start up and heat up operation. However, conventional gate valve is not able to control the flow rate with the opening from the small to the half. In addition, it has a problem of erosion with the opening from the small to the half. Then, conventional gate valve is not preferably applied in the geothermal gathering system in spite of many good points mentioned above. So as to improve these points, we modified the shape of gate and of through conduit gate valve. This modification made it possible to develop a high erosion-resistant gate valve with good flow rate controllability for geothermal gathering system.