How to Tell a Globe Valve From a Gate Valve

There are around 1.6 million engineers working in the United States today. If you’re among them, part of your job may be to work with valves.

It’s essential to know the differences between these valves and what each one is used for. Knowing will help you in your job and could save you a lot of trouble.

In this post, we’re going to look at a globe valve vs a gate valve. Keep reading to learn more about how these work within a system.

What is a Gate Valve?

A gate valve is used to allow or prevent the flow of a liquid through a pipe. These are most commonly seen in the oil and gas industry.

As their name suggests, a gate valve uses a gate-like structure to block the pipe. The gate faces may be wedge-shaped or parallel within the pipe. They do not regulate flow and are therefore either open or closed.

One of the advantages of using a gate valve is that you can use it with systems requiring multi-directional flows.

What is a Globe Valve?

A globe valve is designed to stop, start, and regulate the flow of a liquid through a pipe. Like gate valves, they have many applications in the oil and gas industries.

This type of valve contains a disc and a seat. As the disc moves up and down, it allows more or less liquid to flow through the system. Because the movement is slow, it works well even in high-pressure systems.

It can be difficult to understand what the various symbols on it mean, so it’s important to know what each symbol means before operating a globe valve.

Globe Valve vs Gate Valve

Both of these valves are seen in various manufacturing industries.

Gate valves, especially knife gate valves, work especially well with thicker and slurry-like liquids. They can also be as large as you need them to be and work well in high-pressure and high-temperature situations.

The biggest disadvantages of gate valves are their limitations when used in low-pressure applications and they can take more time to close. Their larger sizes can also make them more difficult to fit in some areas.

Globe valves have a shorter stroke compared to gate valves and have sturdy seals to ensure a pipe is completely closed off when necessary. It’s also fairly easy to replace the seal which makes them easy to maintain.

The two major drawbacks of globe valves are that they have a higher pressure drop compared to gate valves and it takes more force to seal them completely.

Need Help Choosing the Right Valve?

Now you know the differences between a globe valve vs gate valve. With this information, you should have a better idea as to what you will need for your project or machinery.

If you’re still not sure, please contact us. We would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have and set you up with the valve that will best meet your needs.