Parker's high-integrity manifold range
Parker Instrumentation has unveiled a comprehensive range of high-integrity manifolds, designed to meet the growing demand for new levels of safety and performance for instrumentation systems used in chemical and other process plants.
The range integrates product portfolios and intellectual property from Parker and leading manifold designer Ives Valves, acquired by Parker in 2001, and reflects a multi-million euro investment in machine tools and product development.
The manifold range offers solutions for every major industrial process instrumentation application. It incorporates unique options, purpose-engineered to help engineers meet the demand for ever-higher integrity instrumentation systems. Key among these options is the ability to dramatically reduce the number of potential leak paths, and eliminate any need for sealants when making connections.
'We are already known worldwide as technology leaders in tube fittings. With this range, we're now staking our claim for leadership in the manifold arena', says Mal Chapman, manifold product manager of Parker Instrumentation. 'We're focused on providing a total supply capability to deliver tangible new performance and reliability benefits to instrumentation designers and users.'
At the core of the new range are around 50 types of manifold, including a variety of 2-, 3- and 5-valve manifolds for pressure and flow transmitters, double-block-and-bleed assemblies and monoflanges, manifolds for Rosemount's 3051 'coplanar' transmitters, miniaturised manifolds and distribution manifolds, together with discrete valves and accessories.
High-integrity options include two developments for advancing manifold safety and reliability. The first is an ability to specify manifolds with integral pre-assembled connections for compression tube fittings. Known as PTFree Connect, this innovation eliminates taper thread interconnections, and with it any need for PTFE tape or anaerobic sealant – a major cause of problems in the field, according to Parker.
The second is manifold designs with integral weld-necked flanges. This allows double-block-and-bleed valve arrangements to be fabricated in a single piece, reducing the number of connection interfaces – each one a potential leak path – from as many as 10 in traditional double-block-and-bleed implementations, to just one. Furthermore, the technology reduces the size and weight of the assemblies by some 75%.