Daniel Industries, Inc.

Alberto L Hinojosa

Kee W Kim

Kenton Chickering, Iii

A gate valve mechanism is provided which is especially designed for use as a hot tap valve. The valve incorporates a fabricated valve body having internal seat rings with circular elastomer sealing elements disposed within circular sealed grooves formed therein. A slab gate member is movable between the seat members between open and closed positions and is positionable radially outwardly of the seal grooves to permit replacement of the elastomer seal members. The valve body structure is of minimal thickness to permit access to the seal members through the flow ports of the valve in order to permit seal replacement. The valve also incorporates an internal rotatable threaded drive stem which receives a drive nut interconnected with the gate to thus permit opening and closing movement of the gate member by simply rotating the valve stem. The seat rings accomplish venting of the seal groove to the valve chamber and metal internal sealing lands to prevent seal extrusion and damage upon valve opening and closing movement.

Valve mechanism with replaceable seal rings

A high temperature valve stem packing incorporates a plurality of graphite seal rings composed of spirally coiled graphite tape and metal packing adapter rings being interposed between respective ones of the graphite seal rings. The metal packing adapter rings are of such configuration as to cause structural deformation of the end surface portions of the graphite rings to thereby induce the graphite seal rings to maintain the sealing capability thereof in response to wear during use and in response to fluid pressure applied thereto. In one form of the invention, the packing adapter rings are of solid construction and in another embodiment, the adapter rings are composed of pairs of interfitting rings which cooperate to define packing rings that are capable of yielding in spring-like manner as mechanical force or pressure induced force is transmitted to the packing assembly.

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Alberto L Hinojosa