New Flowserve Heavy-Duty Actuator Extends Cycle Life and Reduces Maintenance

Published: 31st March 2010 | Issue 13 Share article:

Flowserve Corporation, a leading provider of flow control products and services for the global infrastructure markets, recently unveiled the new Flowserve Automax RG Series Heavy-Duty Scotch Yoke Pneumatic Actuator. The new actuator offers customers the opportunity to realize savings through an extended cycle life and reduced maintenance costs. Most importantly, plant and personnel safety is enhanced due to the RG’s design, which is compliant to IEC 61508 (Functional Safety Related Systems) Safety Integrity Level 3. This Safety Standard emphasizes that the quality and reliability of the equipment forming the safety system are key to the prevention of failure.

“The IP67M (temporary submersion) rating and marine-grade epoxy-surface treatment ensures optimal ingress environmental protection when installed in harsh corrosive atmospheres such as offshore installations,” said Don Weeks, Product Portfolio Manager, Flowserve Flow Control Division. “The goal of the RG design is to extend and protect the customer’s capital investment which can reduce the cost of ownership for the product life cycle.”

The new Automax RG-Series features a modular design; the body, pneumatic and spring segments are independent modules. The pneumatic and spring modules can easily be changed on site to modify the actuator torque output and fail rotation direction. Without this feature, a new actuator must be purchased to make these changes. With a pull-to-compress spring module, manual overrides can easily be added for spring-return or double-acting requirements. These features can minimize customer maintenance budgets by reducing product modification and installation time.

The symmetrical body design enables interchangeability of spring and pressure modules. The pressure-module piston incorporates dual-wear bands and dynamic-quad seals; dual wear bands provide forward wiping action which can extend quad seal life. Inside the pressure and torque module, critical sealing and load bearing surfaces are honed and hard-chrome plated to reduce surface wear and increase corrosion resistance. Both features can further extend actuator cycle life.

The new hard-chrome plated steel guide bar provides optimal support of the transverse loads. Coupling the yoke are new aluminum bronze slider blocks that minimize contact stress and ensure high-cycle life. Combining these key technologies results in extended automation life cycle to increase production up time and reduce maintenance costs.


The Automax RG-Series is lighter and has a smaller dimensional envelope for ease of installation and reduced cost. It represents a 20 percent weight reduction and a 20 percent end-to-end length reduction compared to previous designs. The actuator features an expanded torque output range of 2.2 million inch/pounds (248,566 Newton Metres). The availability of more than 100 output torque profiles optimizes valve automation selection and reduces the weight, size and cost of the actuator.

The actuator conforms to global mounting and accessory mounting standards including International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 5211 valve interface with MSS option and NAMUR VDI/VDE 3845 compliance.

The Automax RG Series can be used in quarter-turn automation applications for ball, plug, and butterfly valves and rotary dampers in chemical, refining, oil and gas and general industrial applications. Scotch yoke actuators create torque with a mechanical advantage and are most often used when valve torque exceeds rack-and-pinion actuator designs. The Scotch yoke mechanism converts linear motion (force) to rotational motion (torque), producing 90 degrees or more of rotation.

Flowserve Flow Control Ltd. Tel, 01444 314400
Website: www.flowserve.com

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