Design of valve station for better regulation of gases : Product development process of UHT’s valve station for improved regulation of gases

This report presents a product development project carried out as a thesis within the Bachelor of Science in Innovation and Design Engineering program at Karlstad University. The project was conducted in collaboration with Uvån Hagfors Teknologi AB (UHT), a leading Swedish company in the metal industry that develops customized systems for metal treatment. The purpose was to investigate factors influencing the controllability of gas flows in piping systems and to develop an improved solution for the valve station in UHT’s CLU converter system. The goal was to enable more controllable flow in the valve station by reducing pressure losses, as gas is to be introduced into molten metal where exact quantities are critical for achieving desired material properties. The project encompassed several stages of a product development process, such as requirement specification, preliminary study, idea generation, and evaluation of proposed solutions using elimination matrices. This was followed by a design review where the solutions were assessed holistically to ensure compatibility between different sections of the valve station. The final solution was visualized through a detailed 3D CAD model. The result was a new valve station with improved piping layout, achieved by reducing the number of bends, enlarging bend radii, and reprioritizing pipe sections. These developments led to a total reduction in the system’s pressure loss coefficient by 13.85%. According to established theories (Alvarez, 2006), the reduction in pressure losses is expected to result in smoother and more laminar flows, thereby improving control capability, reducing material wear, lowering energy consumption, and enhancing the quality of the final product. The solution retained the existing materials and components, which simplifies potential implementation at UHT without major changes to other parts of the system. The project thus demonstrated that significant flow improvements can be achieved through geometry-optimized design of piping systems, contributing to both technical efficiency, improved control capabilities, and reduced material wear.