Case: Valve Housing for Food Processing Equipment

We manufacture a series of valves in different sizes for the food processing equipment industry. The valves are formed from stainless steel and is used for processing e.g., beer, milk, and other liquid foods.

How we manufacture the valve housing

The valves are manufactured using a combination of vertical and horizontal deep-drawing, which is cold forming processes. By using cold forming processes, the valves can be formed from one piece of sheet metal to the desired shape, completely without welds.

This eliminates irregularities occurring from welds, which might cause hygienic problems. Welds also represents a corrosion issue, as they are more irresistible to oxidation.

Cold forming the valves from sheet metal instead of using a hot casting process, comes with many benefits. E.g., sheet metal is more robust to changes in temperature, which food processing equipment often is exposed to.

Furthermore, casted items contain small gas bobbles in the material, deriving from heating up the metal. These bobbles results in a more porous and fragile structure of the material. Contrarily, cold formed items do not contain gas bubbles and therefore, preserve more of the natural strength in the material. Sheet metal can also be polished to obtain a smooth and disinfectable product surface, contrary to casted items which is more rauh.

Reduced material consumption

The high strength material when using cold process, allows for designing valves with a thinner wall thickness, without compromising function and quality specifications. This reduces the material consumption, which is particularly important, when producing products of stainless steel, which is a costly material.