New EXTREME material for higher reliability valves
Dott. Ing. Mario Cozzani s.r.l. has developed a new highly resistant material to be used for plates or rings on valves of reciprocating compressors in extreme working conditions.
The new EXTREME material is particularly suitable in all heavy duty applications that require high impact resistance, high fatigue resistance and high reliability.
The valve sealing element is probably the most important and critical component of the cylinder valves for reciprocating compressors. This component has to resist to repeated impacts at high speed against the valve guard and the seat during the opening and closing of the valve.
Thanks to the special multilayer solution and to the advanced manufacturing technologies, the EXTREME material is properly used as valve sealing element. A special combination of polymer and carbon fibres provides high resistance to fatigue compared to other thermoplastic materials such as glass or carbon fibre filled PEEK™.
| Property comparison | EXTREME vs Glass Fibre PEEK™ | EXTREME vs Carbon Fibre PEEK™ |
| Tensile Strength | > 4.5x | > 3x |
| Compression Strength | > 2.5x | > 2x |
| Flexural Strength | > 3x | > 2x |
Thanks to the above mentioned special features, valve sealing elements made of EXTREME material can be designed with lower thickness to reduce as much as possible the clearance volume.
The valves equipped with EXTREME material have achieved better endurance results when the applications are characterized by a wide range of variable pressures, and also with different molecular weights of the process gas.
The EXTREME material is also characterized by high chemical compatibility with most of the gases used in Oil & Gas, Petrochemical and Chemical applications.
- Higher mechanical property up to 250°C;
- Higher resistance to fatigue (no crack propagation);
- Higher impact resistance;
- Higher resistance to corrosion;
- Higher dimensional stability;
- Reduced thickness with respect to the current thermoplastic materials.
- Higher operating temperature;
- High speed compressor up to 1800 rpm;
- Compatible with a wide range of gases, including corrosive gases;
- Suitable for lubricated and oil-free compressors;
- Suitable for long maintenance intervals;
- Extreme and extensive working conditions.
Comparative accelerated life tests over 200°C have been performed with special equipment in Dott. Ing. Mario Cozzani s.r.l. laboratories, in order to verify the effective fatigue resistance of the valve plate and rings made of several different materials.
The EXTREME sample life has been more than twice of the carbon fibre PEEK™ sample, and more than four times of the glass fibre PEEK™ sample, without showing any sign of failure.
