The quality of the materials and construction of the valves throughout your critical piping systems isn’t the only determinant of their performance or their longevity. Even the strongest and sturdiest valves wear down over time and require proactive and preventative maintenance, repairs, and (eventually) replacement. When a high-quality valve nears the end of its service lifetime, a critical part of your infrastructure that has provided reliable service for years may suddenly start disrupting essential systems.
Regular and thorough valve inspection is essential to ensuring that your piping systems can continue to operate smoothly, efficiently, and safely. Fluid and air valve inspection service providers play an essential role in keeping you informed about the health of your valves. Routine inspection ensures minor issues can be fixed before they become major problems. It also provides the opportunity to replace or repair aging valves soon enough to avoid a future catastrophic failure.
Benefits of Valve Inspection
Bringing onboard experts in industrial and military valves who can inspect your piping system offers no shortage of benefits. Inspection of your valves is an essential part of routine system maintenance, but on top of that, regular valve inspection makes your piping infrastructure safer and more reliable, keeps your performance optimized, and even saves on costs.
Increased Safety
Inspection of the valves in your infrastructure, especially safety release valves and pressure relief valves in critical fluid transport systems, is helpful for identifying potential safety hazards. Professional inspection ensures that valves meet safety standards and regulations as well. It also prevents accidents and valve failure incidents that could both damage equipment and severely harm your personnel.
Enhanced Reliability
Expert fluid and air valve inspection service providers can detect wear, corrosion, or damage related to environmental conditions or age early, preventing unexpected valve failures and improving the overall reliability of your systems.
Valve inspection provides assurance that your systems operate at peak efficiency and that any issues affecting performance can be identified and rectified, minimizing disruptions and ensuring consistent system functionality.
Cost Savings
Through careful and regular inspection of your valves, you can extend the lifespan of your valves dramatically and prevent major repairs or replacements, saving on not only maintenance and repair or replacement costs, but also avoiding costly downtime.
Compliance with Stringent ASME and Military Specifications
Mil-spec valves are held to extremely high standards of material quality, build quality, and design to ensure reliability, longevity, and interoperability in demanding environments during high-stakes operations on naval vessels.
Regular valve inspection also ensures that your piping systems remain in compliance with the high military and ASME standards for safety and environmental regulations, reducing the risk of possible penalties or legal consequences associated with noncompliance.
Inspection of your valves is also essential for documentation and recordkeeping, facilitating traceability and accountability in audits and wider-scale inspections of your fluid transport infrastructure.
How to Perform Inspection of a Valve
Liquid, gas, and air valve inspection service providers rely on a wide range of metrology and quality testing methods to thoroughly assess the condition of your valves and identify potential issues. Some common methods include:
- Visual inspection for signs of damage, corrosion, or wear
- Dimensional inspection to verify that critical valve dimensions continue to meet specified tolerances and still fit within the system
- Functional testing to verify the valve’s functionality under normal operating conditions
- Leak testing methods such as bubble testing, pressure decay, or helium leak testing to identify and repair any leakage points
- Non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques to detect internal defects, structural issues, and surface and near-surface defects, such as radiographic testing, ultrasonic testing, and liquid penetrant testing
- Torque testing and pressure testing to identify potential abnormalities and assess the valve’s ability to withstand operating conditions
- Vibration analysis to detect indications of possible valve component misalignment or other internal issues
Valve inspection service providers select relevant inspection methods individually or in combination with each other depending on the type of valve, its operating environment, and the specific requirements of the inspection procedure.
Full-Service Valve Inspection and Testing with Dante Valve
We ensure long operational lifetimes for our valve products, providing comprehensive maintenance, setting, and testing services to verify performance, accuracy, and reliability throughout your valve’s life. Our setting and testing services conform to stringent ASME and military specifications to provide an extra layer of safety and ensure confidence and peace of mind in your systems.
To learn more about our capabilities for inspection of our leading valve products, including Danco, Kunkle, and Trac safety relief and pressure-reducing valves, or to schedule a test of your Dante Valve products, contact us today.