Crane FKX & XOMOX

The core Tufline sleeved plug valve, offered in flanged end, weld end, screwed end and barstock body styles.

Use it whenuse it when the fluid is corrosive, dirty or prone to solidifying and a ball valve seat would be cut or seized -- the plug wipes the sleeve every stroke. Pick the body style from the piping, not the process: flanged for maintainability, weld end where flanges are a leak path, barstock for small bore.

A sleeved plug valve with a full-bore port rather than the standard reduced port.

Use it whenuse it when pressure drop matters or when the line has to be pigged or rodded through. The standard reduced-port plug valve is smaller and cheaper, so only pay for full port when the flow or the cleaning method demands it.

Sleeved plug valves with three, four or five ports in one body.

Use it whenuse it when you are diverting or combining streams and would otherwise install two or three valves and the piping between them -- fewer bodies means fewer flanges to leak and less holdup. Confirm the flow pattern carefully; multi-port plug porting is not intuitive.

Low-emission sleeved plug valve designs; the XOMOX brand page cites ISO 15848-1 for the XP3, HF4D and SR designs.

Use it whenuse it when a permit, an LDAR programme or a customer specification puts a number on allowable stem leakage -- a standard plug valve will not carry the certification even if it seals well in practice. Ask for the ISO 15848-1 documentation up front.

A sleeved plug valve with an additional top seal above the primary stem sealing.

Use it whenuse it when a stem leak would be a safety event rather than a housekeeping problem -- toxic or highly hazardous service where you want a further barrier behind the primary seal.

Sleeved plug valves configured for throttling and control rather than isolation.

Use it whenuse it when you need to modulate on a fluid that would destroy a conventional control valve trim. It is not a substitute for a globe control valve on clean service -- pick it because of the fluid, not because of the loop.

A lined-body plug valve for highly corrosive service.

Use it whenuse it when the fluid attacks stainless steel -- lining the body is far cheaper than buying the valve in an exotic alloy. The limit is temperature and vacuum, so check both against the liner.

A lined ball valve.

Use it whenuse it when you want quarter-turn on-off on aggressive service with lower operating torque than a plug valve, and full bore matters more than the plug valve's wiping action.

A lined butterfly valve.

Use it whenuse it when line size makes a lined plug or ball valve uneconomic -- the lined butterfly is the cheap way to isolate a large corrosive line, accepting that the disc sits in the flow.

A lined check valve.

Use it whenuse it when the corrosive line also needs backflow protection -- match the lining to the isolation valves rather than mixing liner materials in the same line.

Lined valves for discharge at the base of a vessel or reactor.

Use it whenuse it when a lined reactor or tank has to drain fully and you cannot leave a pocket of acid above a standard valve seat.

Lined ancillary equipment for the same corrosive service.

Use it whenuse it when you are specifying a complete lined line -- an unlined strainer or sight glass in an otherwise lined line is where the failure will happen. Worth quoting alongside the valves rather than leaving to another supplier.

A double eccentric high performance butterfly valve with a patented PTFE seat ring and double eccentric disc mounting. Crane lists DN 50-2800 / NPS 3 inch-108 inch, PN 10 to 100 and ASME Class 150, 300 and 600, and states tightness to leak rate A per EN 12266-1.

Use it whenuse it when you need tight shutoff under high pressure or vacuum on a large line -- the size range goes far beyond what most high performance butterfly valves cover, which is the main reason to specify it. Crane names chlorine gas, liquid nitrogen, oxygen and methanol among the services, so it is a real chemical-duty valve, not a utility valve.

Butterfly valves configured for specific non-standard services.

Use it whenuse it when the standard Type 800 configuration does not cover the service and you would otherwise be looking at a custom valve -- worth an application review with Crane before going bespoke.

Crane's high performance butterfly valve brand, offered in soft seated, metal seated and fire-safe versions plus Fire Flow and Mil-Spec variants, in wafer or lugged style, in cast carbon and alloy steels and aluminium bronze. Crane states sizes up to 48 inch and Classes 150, 300 and 600, with double dead end service capability.

Use it whenuse it when the duty is high performance shutoff or modulating service on standard industrial process lines -- power generation, oil and gas and hydrocarbon processing. The lugged style with double dead end capability is the one to specify if the valve may end up at the end of a line during maintenance.

Metal seated and fire-safe versions of the FLOWSEAL butterfly valve.

Use it whenuse it when temperature rules out a soft seat, or when the specification calls for fire-safe -- a soft seated valve cannot be made fire-safe after the fact, so this has to be decided at order.

A triple offset butterfly valve with a seat angle design and a Stellite hard-faced body seat, aimed at bidirectional zero-leakage shutoff.

Use it whenuse it when a large-bore valve has to isolate hot steam or run at temperature extremes that rule out any soft seat or rubber lining -- steam isolation and plant sectionalising are the classic cases. Metal seated means it tolerates cycling and abrasion where a soft seat would be cut.

A full-bore triple offset valve that Crane describes as a hybrid of a severe service ball valve and a triple offset butterfly valve, with bidirectional zero leakage shutoff, high Cv, unobstructed flow and a cavity-free design.

Use it whenuse it when you would otherwise buy a severe service metal-seated ball valve -- Crane's own argument is that the high Cv lets you drop a line size when replacing butterfly or sleeved plug valves, and cavity-free matters where trapped fluid is a hazard. Consider it against a ball valve on cost, not against the FKX 9000.

Valves designed specifically for HF alkylation service.

Use it whenuse it when the unit is HF alkylation. This is not a place to substitute a general chemical-service valve; refiners specify the HF-service design by name and the approval process is separate.

XOMOX's soft seated ball valve range.

Use it whenuse it when the service is clean enough for a soft seat and you want low torque and full bore -- if the fluid is dirty or crystallising, go back to the sleeved plug valve.

XOMOX's own pneumatic actuators for its valve range.

Use it whenuse it when you want the actuator sized and mounted by the valve maker -- on sleeved plug valves in particular, torque is not the same as a ball valve of the same size and a generic actuator selection often comes up short.