A UK based comapny focusing on solutions designed to help horses reach their potential, have designed and manufactured an impressive sea walker installation that is built from scratch at desired site locations all over the world.
The sea walker combines serious exercise that is enjoyable to the horse, and with the inherent benefits of chilled salt water, provides an invaluable aid to every horse. It brings the benefits of the sea right into a facility where easy access direct to the sea is not possible. With this equine water walker the user can target different muscle groups in the horse by varying the height of the water, whilst the chilled salt water acts as a powerful restorative.
This vital piece of equipment to many farms, race tracks or training facilities needs a valve to aid with the advanced filtering technology of the sea water. AKO Pinch Valves are used in the company’s own design filters as a means of flushing out filtered debris periodically. The company didn’t want there to be any risk of waste catching in the waste line valve as that would potentially allow process water to escape, and they understood that the AKO Pinch Valve for salt water would still seal in such an instance, therefore providing optimal security.
The only thing the company later came to realise was the risk of system air loss which would mean process water escaping freely down the waste line. To solve this, they retrospectively fitted air pressure monitoring systems which shut the system down if the pressure dropped.
Other than that, the company have found the pinch valves for salt water ideal for this application. They have been using AKO Pinch Valves since 2013 and are very pleased to have found a valve filtering solution for their extensive equipment.
Pinch Valves with Salt Water
Although the outer body and flanges of AKO Pinch Valves from the VF range are powder coated in white paint, the bushings on the flanges are not powder coated because the paint could chip off and end up in the product flow stream. Therefore, rubber wetted parts were required for this application, to protect the aluminium flanges against corrosion and pitting from the salt water.
Pinch Valve used within this application: VF100.03X.333.30LA
VF model, air operated, aluminium body, aluminium flanges PN10/16 with natural rubber flanged sleeve wetted parts, natural rubber internal sleeve.
The salt water only comes into contact with the internal rubber sleeve which tightly squeezes closed to shut off the water, and also the rubber flanged sleeves. The type of elastomer used in this particular pinch valve assembly for this application is natural rubber, which has fantastic abrasion-free qualities and has proven to perform very well.
The natural rubber wetted parts of this pinch valve for salt water make the complete unit more cost effective for the end user, rather than choosing stainless steel.
