A key factor to ensuring that control valves perform as expected, is understanding how operating conditions, changes in packing material, spring compression, and other influences contribute to overall control valve performance. During control valve and actuator sizing, several factors must be considered to ensure the actuator can move and maintain the valve plug in place while operating at process conditions. Diaphragm effective area is defined by the size of the actuator.
Most manufacturers offer a variety of actuator sizes.
Valve plug stroke and travel is determined by sizing the valve body to meet flow requirements. Secondary forces acting on the valve plug in order of importance include static unbalance, dynamic unbalance, packing friction, stem size, and diaphragm hysteresis. Spring characteristics are the most active of all influences and should be determined after all other factors have been considered. A control valve and actuator assembly is tested on a bench, not under actual operating conditions. Bench set consist of considering all the factors and forces, selecting a spring with the correct spring rate, and setting an initial compression on the spring.