Review of the new Belimo Characterizing Disk Control Valve Belimo's Characterizing Disk has give the ball valve a new life as a control device. Characterizing of the control port of valves in the past has been limited to extremely expensive industrial quality control valves.	Editor, Ken Sinclair has been a control consultant for over 20 years and has seen a lot of control valves come and go.  In this review he shares his thoughts about the new Belimo Disk Valve.

Product Review

We all know Belimo as a worldwide company providing better solutions in the field of damper control for HVAC systems.  They are now also in the control valve business introducing a Characterizing Disk concept to solve some of the known problems of controlling a ball valve.

The radical changes in flow with a small opening in a ball valve has greatly reduced its usefulness for control applications. Belimo's Characterizing Disk gives the ball valve a new life as a control device. Characterizing of the control port of valves in the past has been limited to extremely expensive industrial quality control valves. Belimo has been able to bring this industrial control feature to the reheat valve. This concept allows valves of the same size to have different Cv.

Providing the correct Cv requires close coordination and attention to detail between the engineer and the installer on the construction site to insure that the correct valve gets installed on the correct coil.  A second concern of providing the correct Cv for low flow valves has been plugging in the early stages of a project by construction debris.  Belimo has performed tests specifically for this. They tested the valve with debris in the water and found that the debris was sheared-off by the ball. They also did not find any debris build-up in the characterizing disk.  The ball also rotates from the notch of the disk outward, so the ball will tend to push debris away from the notch and into the flow. With these two concerns met this valve should offer much improved control for reheat. The elimination of cycling on a reheat coil is extremely important as every cycle is felt by the client under the respective diffusers.  We assume the type of reliability that we have come to expect from Belimo will be part of this new valve.

Blake at Belimo, BBonnabeau@belimo.com has allowed us to copy a few pictures down from the Belimo site to show the essence of their new valve.  As you can see by the two curves on your left the Characterizing Disk provides much improved linear control. The picture at the top right shows the actual Belimo Characterizing Disk. This interesting shape when combined with the ball rotation action provides near linear flow results.

It will be interesting to see how the double o-ring packing system will hold up under many years of use, as this has been the true test of many of the control valves of the past.  I feel that if water systems are kept clean this system should perform well, but only the test of time will provide the answer.

Other features of the valve are:

• Easy direct coupling of actuator with a single screw.

• One standard flange for all valves.

• Perpendicular mounting flange and square drive head eliminate lateral forces on the stem.

• Blow-out proof stem with thrust-bearing double o-ring design for long service life.

• Non-corroding chrome-plated brass or stainless ball.

• Vent hole reduces condensation build-up.

• Forged brass valve body - no pin-hole leaks.

• Characterizing disk.

If you want more information on this new valve check out Belimo's web site http://www.belimo.com/

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