A PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF NOISE AND VIBRATION IN A PRESSURE-REDUCING VALVE

The mechanical vibration that is occasionally found in gas pressure re ducing valves can be eliminated by careful design of the valve plug an d seat. A pressure-reducing valve was found to be excessively noisy, p roducing a sound pressure level of 117 dB when throttling air at an in let-to-outlet pressure ratio of 15; as a result the valve suffered wea r and vibration damage. By changing the design of the original flat pl ug and seat, the problem was significantly reduced. A 60-degrees conic al plug and seat produced a noise reduction of 12 dB (a factor of 4 in actual sound pressure level), the mechanical vibration was eliminated , and the flow capacity was increased by about 25%.