Valve for Sand Slurry in Sand Blast Machinery

An original equipment manufacturer of sand blast machinery, specialising in the wet blasting technology have been using valves from AKO UK as vital parts of their equipment for 40+ years.

One of their machines providing a consistent high-quality surface finish has a powerful multi-gun blast head, and for relevant applications the option of double above and below blast heads for maximum productivity. The machine has an S-Tank filtration system to help keep running costs to a minimum by cleaning and recirculating water for rinsing and the window wash. A Moving Bed filter option can be added for those processes that are particularly dirty.

Applications that this machine is used for include cleaning, deburring, coatings, paint stripping and casting, for industries including cutting tool inserts, medical implants, hygienic surfaces for food, aluminium extrusion and composites.

Valve for Sand Slurry Application Details

The media passing through the Pinch Valve at 3 BAR is an ambient sand slurry. Positioned within the machinery, the valve is normally open. The amount of air used to close the Pinch Valve depends on the slurry line pressure, but is usually a maximum of 5 BAR.

The AKO Pinch Valves are used to control the flow (on/off) of the sand/water slurry which is used in the process on these standard production units, and they are actuated by a solenoid valve and air pressure regulator. There may be several alternative routes for the slurry (process 1, process 2, drain etc), and the valves divert the flow accordingly.

Pinch Valve used within this application – VMC40.03X.50R.30LX

VMC model, air operated, Natural rubber sleeve, aluminium body, stainless steel weld-on end connections.

Pinch Valve Preferred for Sand Slurry

The company had experienced other types of valves that did not meet the required performance of the machinery. Once a Pinch Valve had been trialed, the company realised that it tolerates the sand slurry so much better than other valve types, and have now been using Pinch Valves for sand slurry  within their machine builds for many applications for over 40 years.

The company use different sized Pinch Valves from AKO UK with different specifications and end connections to suit many sand water slurry pipelines. They often have a Vee coupling which attaches to their in-house manufactured pipework system.

Valve Benefits

Just some of the benefits that a Pinch Valve brings to this application (and many others) are it’s simple and compact design/size, it’s lightening fast opening & closing times to fulfil an efficient performance, long-lasting internal sleeves which are the only wearable replacement parts, and the fact that the sleeve is suitable for handling abrasive media with ease, such as sand.

AKO UK provide fitting instructions and assembly videos to help with the re-sleeving process which can easily be carried out on site.