Control valve

• The control action in any control loop system, is executed by the

final control element.

• A control valve essentially consists of a plug and a stem.

• Control valves are available in different types and shapes. They
can be classified in different ways; based on: (a) action, (b)
number of plugs, and (c) flow characteristics.
• Control valves operated through pneumatic actuators can be
classified as either (i) air to open, or (ii) air to close depending
on action.

•
 Structure wise classification
• Depending on the several conditions of the pipelines a
large varieties of control valve body has been
designed. But they can be broadly divided into three
categories:

• Sliding stem or globe body

• Rotating stem body
• Specialized body
• The Sliding stem body or globe body has straight or angle
configuration and also it may have different types of end
connections to meet the requirement.

• In Rotating stem body, the stem rotates about an axis and the
plug of the control valve also rotates about that axis in order to
close or open the valve port, e.g., butterfly valve, ball valve etc.

• In Specialized type valve body a special structure of the body

is designed in order to handle slurry of very low flow, very high
pressure of the order of 2500 psi e.g., weir type valve, gate
valve etc.
 Construction of trim of control action

• The parts of control valve which are in contact with the process
fluid are together called trim of control action. The control
valve plug, stem, seat and cage are together called the trim of
the control action.

• Control valves can also be characterized in terms of the number

of plugs present, as single-seated valve and double-seated valve.
• single-seated valve has only one seat area as shown in the figure.
• It has the advantage that it can more tightly closing valve than the
double seated valve.
• But it has the disadvantage that the thurst on the plug due to flowing
fluid is very high and so a large diaphragm area of the actuator is
required to produce a force greater than the thrust.

• Double seated plug

• In this type of plug, as shown in the figure, the fluid enters the valve
body between two seats and is thus divided into two streams. As the
surface area of the upper and lower plug are almost equal the thrust
force due to the differential pressure existing across the plug in the
process fluid is almost equal and opposite for the two plugs and so the
net force which should be applied to the plug stem is negligibly small. So
the area of the actuator require to produce a force greater than the
net thrust force may be very small. So the valve may be accurately
positioned without the help of positioner. That is why double seated
valves are widely used in 3-term controller.

• The disadvantage of double seated valve is that since the force applied
on the plug by the actuator is small so the tight shut off condition of
the valve at low flow condition cannot be easily obtained.
• The single or double seated plug may be of three types
depending on process condition, which are:
– Poppet type or Quick opening type
– V-port type
– Contour type or Parabolic type or Ratio type or Throttle
type.

• The Poppet type plug is used for ON-OFF controller, where the
movement of valve stem is small and the stem is positioned
between maximum and minimum and orifice area increases
almost linearly with the valve lift.

• V-port and Contour type plugs are used for proportional and
other modes of controller and the choice of the particular plug
depends on the flow characteristics of the control valve.
 Flow Characteristics
• It describes how the flow rate changes with the movement or
lift of the stem.

• The shape of the plug primarily decides the flow characteristics.

However, the design of the control valve and its shape requires
further discussions.

• The flow characteristic of a valve is normally defined in terms

of (a) inherent characteristics and (b) effective characteristics.

• An inherent characteristic is the ideal flow characteristics of a

control valve and is decided by the shape and size of the plug.
On the other hand, when the valve is connected to a pipeline, its
overall performance is decided by its effective characteristic.
 Ideal Characteristics
• The control valve acts like an orifice and the position of the plug
decides the area of opening of the orifice. Recall that the flow rate
through an orifice can be expressed in terms of the upstream and
downstream static pressure heads as:
• Now the area of the control valve opening (a) is again dependent on the
stem position, or the lift. So if the upstream and downstream static
pressure heads are somehow maintained constant, then the flow rate is
a function of the lift (z), i.e.

• The shape of the plug decides, how the flow rate changes with the stem
movement, or lift; and the characteristics of q vs. z is known as the
inherent characteristics of the valve.
• Let us define

• where, qmax is the maximum flow rate, when the valve is fully open and
zmax is the corresponding maximum lift. So eqn. (2) can be rewritten in
terms of m and x as:
• The valve sensitivity is defined as dm/dx, or the slope of the
curve m vs. x. In this way, the control valves can be classified in
terms of their m vs. x characteristics, and three types of
control valves are normally in use. They are:
– (a) Quick opening
– (b) Linear
– (c) Equal Percentage.

• It has to be kept in mind that all the characteristics are to be

determined after maintaining constant pressure difference
across the valve as shown.
Flow Characteristics
• Quick Opening Characteristics: This is generally
found in ON-OFF control valve where about 90% of maximum
flow is obtained for about 30% of stem movement and from
figure it is found that bellow 90% flow is almost linear related
with percentage lift of the valve stem.

• Linear Characteristics: In this case the flow rate is

linearly related with the stem movement (dm/dx =1) so that
for any stem position the flow rate .Generally, V-port valve
has this type of characteristics.

• Equal % Characteristics: It is that characteristics used

in which % change in stem position produces an equal % change
of flow,
• e.g., for a valve having 60 lit/min at 50% stem position will have [60 +
(10% of 60)] lit/min flow when stem position is increased by 10%
from 50% to 60% but in case of linear valve flow will be
• For an equal percentage valve, the flow characteristics is
mathematically expressed as: dm/dx=βx, where β,is a const.
• The above expression indicates, that the slope of the flow
characteristics is proportional to the present flow rate,
justifying the term equal percentage. This flow characteristics
is linear on a semilog graph paper. The minimum flow rate m0
(flow rate at x=0) is never zero for an equal percentage valve
and m can be expressed as: m=m0e β
x
• In this type of valve a tight shut off condition is not possible
even at the extreme minimum position of the stem movement. As
a result at minimum position of stem there is a leakage as shown
in the figure. So for this type of valve a term called Rangeability
(R) is defined as follows:

• The flow rate at any stem position is given by

•
 Effective Characteristics
• The ideal characteristics of a control valve is decided by the shape of
the plug, and the pressure drop across the valve is assumed to be held
constant.

• But in practice, the control valve is installed in conjunction with other

equipment, such as heat exchanger, pipeline, orifice, pump etc. The
elements will have their own flow vs. pressure characteristics and cause
additional frictional loss in the system and the effective
characteristics of the valve will be different from the ideal
characteristics.

• let us consider a control valve connected with a pipeline of length L in

between two tanks, as shown in Fig. We consider the tanks are large
enough so that the heads of the two tanks H0 and H2 can be assumed
to be constant. We also assume that the ideal characteristic of the
control valve is linear. So

• where K is a constant and z is the stem position or lift.

The pipeline will experience some head loss that is again dependent on the
velocity of the fluid.
• From (10), it can be concluded that q is no longer linearly proportional to
stem lift z, though the ideal characteristics of the valve is linear. This
nonlinearity of the characteristics is dependent on the diameter of the
pipeline D; i.e. smaller the pipe diameter, larger is the value of α and
more is the nonlinearity. The nonlinearity of the effective valve
characteristics can be plotted as shown
• The nonlinearity introduced in the effective characteristics can
be reduced by mainly (i) increasing the pipeline diameter, thus
reducing the head loss, (ii) increasing the pressure of the source
H0, (iii) decreasing the pressure at the termination H2.
• The effective characteristics of the control valve shown in Fig.7
are in terms of absolute flow rate( q vs z). The effective
characteristics(m vs x) will deviate upwards.
•
• Thus linear valves are recommended when pressure drop across the
control valve is expected to be fairly constant. On the other hand,
equal percentage valves are recommended when the pressure drop
across the control valve would not be constant due to the presence of
series resistance in the line. As the line loss increases, the effective
characteristics of the equal percentage valve will move closer to the
linear relationship in m vs. x characteristics.

• The performance of a control valve is sometimes defined by the

term “Turn down” or “Turn down Coefficient” or “Turn down
factor” is defined as
•
 Control Valve Sizing
• The proper size of the control valve is selected such that
control of flow over a wide range is possible. The pressure drop,
flow and specific gravity determines the selection of a control
valve. In ideal condition the flow passing by a control valve is

where G = Specific gravity

A = Opening area of the control valve port
K = Proportionality constant

There are other characteristics such as type of the fluid i.e., gas or
liquid, critical flows condition for gases and vapors, viscosity of the
liquid also influences the valve sizing.
• To select a valve the flow condition has to be such that the
process characteristics and the valve characteristics must
match with each other so that non-linear of the overall control
loop may be eliminated.

• e.g., if the control valve is oversized then the minimum

controllable flow is too large and if it is undersized then the
required maximum flow of the process may not be provided by
the valve. Hence the proper sizing of the control valve is always
necessary and it is selected and design by correcting the ideal
discharge constant K.
• In order to sizing a control valve by this method a factor called
the flow coefficient factor or valve coefficient factor or
factor is defined by the relation

• where
• K/ = corrected value of K.
• This Cv factor is defined as the number of US gallon of water flowing
per minute at 600F through a fully open control valve under pressure
drop of 1 psi.
• For liquid, steam and gas the correction factors due to temperature,
specific volume and specific gravity are considered and flow equation
for these three types of fluids for a control valve position Cv at a
differential pressure ΔP is given by
• For liquid:

• For steam:

• For gas:

• Where Cv Valve coefficient

• ΔP Pressure drop across the valve in KN/m2
• P= Inlet pressure in KN/m2
• G= Specific gravity
• V= Specific volume of steam in m3/Kg
• t= Temperature in 0C
• 1 US Gallon = 3.8 Lit
• Depending on above equations the size of a control valve is selected by
the following steps:

• Step1
• For a particular process under control first determine
– Maximum value of flow rate required to maintain control variation
under any condition of the process operation. This gives the normal
maximum flow rate.

– The value of flow rate that will require for most of the time. This
gives the normal flow rate.

– Minimum flow rate required to sustain the process variation under

any process condition. This gives the normal minimum flow rate.

• Step2
– Select the maximum flow rate which the control valve is to
provide. This is generally selected to be 1.4 times the normal
maximum flow rate.
• Step3

• Select the type and style of control valve for best operation.
For this selection the rangeability of the valve has to be
selected such that the minimum controllable flow rate is
generally smaller than the normal minimum flow rate.

• Step4
• Calculate the pressure difference at the control valve at the
maximum flow rate considering a pressure loss.

• Step5
• Determine the control valve size from the manufacturer
monograph chart or by calculating value from the flow equations
of the control valve.
• Now if the fluid viscosity is high or the velocity of fluid is
exceptionally low then the size coefficient will be low and
manufacturer should be asked to determine for that condition
of the process.
• Step6
• In this step the characteristics coefficient, defined by
= diff. in pr. when cv is fully opened/ diff. in pr. when cv is fully
closed.
If α<0.1 or

where, Q = normal flow rate and Qmin = normal minimum flow rate.

• Then the control valve will be required to operate at less than

2% of total lift.

• In this case the control valve should have a powerful actuator

and accurate valve seat and plug or the difference pressure
head should be increased by selecting the larger pumps, larger
line size and minimizing the line loss.