Air-to-open valves

In this particular case, we use an air-to-open valve, meaning that we need to increase the signal to open up the valve. That is, the valve has a positive steady state gain (+KV). 

A pneumatic air-to-open valve also means that energy is required to keep it open. Under a system failure where power is lost, the valve closes and prevents flooding the tank. 

This point can easily get lost in the long explanation An air-to-open valve has a positive gain and is failed-closed. An air-to-close valve has a negative gain (-Kv) and is failed-open. 

On the other hand, we can choose an air-to-open valve (+KV) at the outlet location. Now the... 

Cascade control, along with ratio control, is used to control the temperature. The cold-water line is to have an air-to-close control valve. In case of failure in the air supply, the valve would open fully and a runaway reaction would be prevented. The hot-water line will have an air-to-open valve for similar reasons. After the two streams are mixed, the temperature will be measured. If it is above the desired temperature, the amount of air supplied to the valves will be reduced. This will increase the cold-water flow rate, and decrease the hot-water throughput. The result will be a reduction in the inlet water temperature. The desired temperature will be determined from a measurement of the reactor temperature. A deviation from the desired temperature will cause the set point of the second controller to be changed. This will result in a change of the inlet water temperature. 

Many valves are air-to-open valves. The process engineer decides whether a control valve should be air-to-close or air-to-open, based on the fail-safe position of the valve if the instrument air pressure is lost. For example ... 

The operation of a control valve involves an air supply that positions its movable part (i.e. plug, ball, or vane) relative to the stationary seat of the valve. A valve actuator accurately locates the valve plug in a position determined by the pneumatic control signal and operates to move the valve to either fully open or fully closed positions. The actuators may be either piston or diaphragm types. Air-to-open valves require air to open and therefore automatically close in the event of fail closure. They are therefore used on fuel lines to furnaces. Air-to-close valves fail to open on a loss of air pressure and are used on air lines into fuel burners. In general, fail-to-open and fail-to-close valves operate when the supplied air pressure drops below a minimum value. 

Fig. 9. Control valve and actuator (a) nomenclature (b) fail-open (F/O) or air-to-close (A/C) action and (c) fail-closed (F/C) or air-to-open (A/O)...

Consistency in controls and response is important for example, upward movement on a control panel always causes the valve to open, no matter whether the valve is air to open or air to close. ... 

If we use a controller with positive gain (+KC), the controller output increases as the liquid level drops. We can only reduce the flow if we use an air-to-close valve (-Kv). In the case of a power outage, the valve will stay open. This fail-open valve can drain the entire tank, an event that we may not want to happen. 

An important safety feature is provided by the spring in an actuator. It can be designed to position a control valve in a safe position if a loss of supply air occurs. On a loss of supply air, the actuator in Figure 36 will fail open. This type of arrangement is referred to as "air-to-close, spring-to-open" or simply "fail-open." Some valves fail in the closed position. This type of actuator is referred to as "air-to-open, spring-to-close" or "fail-closed." This "fail-safe" concept is an important consideration in nuclear facility design. 

For example, suppose we are controlling tbe process outlet temperature of a heat exchanger as sketched in Fig. 7.10. A control valve on the steam to the shell side of the heat exchanger is positioned by a temperature controller. To decide what action the controller should have we first look at the valve. Since this valve puts steam into the process, we would want it to fail shut. Therefore we choose an air-to-open (AO) control valve. 

If we were cooling instead of heating, we would want the coolant flow to increase when the temperature increased. But the controller action would still be reverse because the control valve would be an air-to-olosc valve, since wc want it to fail wide open. 

Three vertical cylindrical tanka (10 feet high, 10 feet diameter) are used in a process. Two tanks are process tanks and are level controlled by manipulating outflows using proportional-only level controllers (PB 100). Level transmitter Spans are 10 feet. Control valves are linear, 50 percent open at the normal liquid rate of 1000 gpm, air-to-open, constant pressure drop. These two process tanks are 50 percent full at the normal liquid rale of 1000 gpm. 

If an operator saw this problem developing, he would switch the temperature loop into manual and cut back on the steam flow. The control system in Fig. 8,4fl will perform this "override control automatically. The low selector (LS) sends to the steam valve the lower of the two signals. If the steam valve is air-to-open, the valve will be pinched back by cither high temperature (through the reverse-acting temperature controller) or by low base level (through the low-base-level override controller). 

The fail-safe condition is to not feed air into the regenerator. Therefore, the suction valve is air-to-open and the vent valve is air-to-close. What action should the flow controller have, direct or reverse ... 

Figure 7.120 is a simplified view of a spring diaphragm actuator. The actuator receives a pneumatic signal from the controller via a booster flow enlarger or a valve positioner and can be adapted in the form of an air-to-open or an air-to-close mechanism. 

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