![Brass instrument rotary valve diagram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Brass_instrument_rotary_valve_diagram.svg)
A rotary valve (also called rotary-motion valve) is a type of
valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
in which the rotation of a passage or passages in a transverse plug regulates the flow of liquid or gas through the attached pipes. The common
stopcock
A stopcock is a form of valve used to control the flow of a liquid or gas. The term is not precise and is applied to many different types of valve. The only consistent attribute is that the valve is designed to completely stop the flow when clo ...
is the simplest form of rotary valve. Rotary valves have been applied in numerous applications, including:
* Changing the pitch of
brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin a ...
s.
* Controlling the steam and exhaust ports of
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
s, most notably in the
Corliss steam engine
A Corliss steam engine (or Corliss engine) is a steam engine, fitted with rotary valves and with variable valve timing patented in 1849, invented by and named after the American engineer George Henry Corliss of Providence, Rhode Island.
Engines f ...
.
* Periodically reversing the flow of air and fuel across the
open hearth furnace
An open-hearth furnace or open hearth furnace is any of several kinds of industrial furnace in which excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Because steel is difficult to manufacture owing to its high melt ...
.
* Loading sample on
chromatography
In chemical analysis, chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture into its components. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid solvent (gas or liquid) called the ''mobile phase'', which carries it through a system (a ...
column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
s.
* Certain types of
two-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...
and
four-stroke
A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...
engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
s.
* Most hydraulic automotive power steering control valves.
Use in brass instruments
In the context of
brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin a ...
s, rotary valves are found on
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to:
* Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells
* The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain
* ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
,
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s,
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
s,
flugelhorns
The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some a ...
, and
tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...
s. The cornet derived from the
posthorn
The post horn (''also'' post-horn) is a valveless cylindrical brass instrument with a cupped mouthpiece. The instrument was used to signal the arrival or departure of a post rider or mail coach. It was used especially by postilions of the 18th ...
, by applying rotary valves to it in the 1820s in France.
An alternative to a rotary valve trumpet would be
piston valve
A "piston valve" is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder.
Examples of piston valves are:
* The valves used in many brass instruments
* The va ...
trumpet. Many European
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
players tend to favor rotary valves.
Trombone
F attachment
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
valves are usually rotary, with several variations on the basic design also in use, such as the Thayer
axial flow valve
The axial flow valve, or Thayer valve, is a brass instrument valve design for trombone F attachments, patented in 1978 by Orla Ed Thayer. Designed with assistance from Zigmant Kanstul to replace the traditional rotary valve, it was a revolution ...
and the
Hagmann valve
The Hagmann Free-Flow Valve is a trademarked brass instrument valve design developed by Swiss musician and instrument technician René Hagmann, first introduced for trombone F attachments in 1990. His intention was to address some of the geometric ...
.
Rotary valve was first applied to the horn in 1824 by Nathan Adams (1783-1864) of Boston and patented in 1835 by Joseph Riedl.
Use in industry
Rotary valves for industrial manufacturing are often used in bulk material handling, dust collection or pneumatic conveying systems, depending on the application. The valve is used to regulate the flow of a product or material by maintaining a consistent flow rate suited to the process. Controlling the flow of material helps to prevent issues such as jamming, material leakage and damage to the valve itself. Typical applications are for feeding a weighed hopper or for feeding a mill that can be clogged by the product.
Valves are part of the material exchange process and work in metering or feeding applications, function as rotary airlocks, or provide a combination of airlock and metering functions.
A rotary valve in the pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry is used to dose and feed solid bulk products within the processes. Valves are also commonly used in construction, plastics, recycling, agriculture and forestry, or wherever material needs to be safely and efficiently conveyed from one point to another.
An airlock-type rotary valve receives and dispenses material from two chambers with different pressure levels. They seal air flow between the valve’s inlet and outlet to maintain a consistent pressure differential, which promotes efficient material flow. The valve’s pressurized chamber prevents foreign material from infiltrating the housing and keeps conveyed material from escaping the system.
Use in engine design
Four-stroke engines
![Itala rotary valve cooling](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Itala_rotary_valve_cooling.jpg)
The rotary valve combustion engine possesses several significant advantages over the conventional assemblies, including significantly higher compression ratios and rpm, meaning more power, a much more compact and light-weight cylinder head, and reduced complexity, meaning higher reliability and lower cost. As inlet and exhaust are usually combined special attention should be given to valve cooling to avoid
engine knocking
In spark ignition internal combustion engines, knocking (also knock, detonation, spark knock, pinging or pinking) occurs when combustion of some of the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder does not result from propagation of the flame front ignite ...
.
Rotary valves have been used in several different engine designs. In Britain, the ''National Engine Company Ltd'' advertised its rotary valve engine for use in early aircraft, at a time when
poppet valve
A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine.
It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...
s were prone to failure by sticking or burning.
In the end of 1930s,
Frank Aspin developed a design with a rotary valve that rotated on the same axis as the cylinder bore, but with limited success.
US company ''Coates International Ltd'' has developed a spherical rotary valve for internal combustion engines which replaces the
poppet valve
A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine.
It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...
system. This particular design is four-stroke, with the rotary valves operated by overhead shafts in lieu of overhead camshafts (i.e. in line with a bank of cylinders). The first sale of such an engine was part of a
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
engine-generator
An engine–generator is the combination of an electrical generator and an engine (prime mover) mounted together to form a single piece of equipment. This combination is also called an ''engine–generator set'' or a ''gen-set''. In many contexts ...
.
Rotary valves are potentially highly suitable for high-revving engines, such as those used in
racing sportscars and
F1 racing cars, on which traditional
poppet valve
A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine.
It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...
s with springs can fail due to
valve float Valve float is an adverse condition which can occur at high engine speeds when the poppet valves in an internal combustion engine valvetrain do not properly follow the closure phase of the cam lobe profile. This reduces engine efficiency and perform ...
and spring resonance and where the
desmodromic valve
:''In general mechanical terms, the word ''desmodromic'' is used to refer to mechanisms that have different controls for their actuation in different directions.''
A desmodromic valve is a reciprocating engine poppet valve that is positively clos ...
gear is too heavy, large in size and too complex to time and design properly. Rotary valves could allow for a more compact and lightweight cylinder head design. They rotate at half engine speed (or one quarter) and lack the inertia forces of reciprocating valve mechanisms. This allows for higher engine speeds, offering approximately perhaps 10% more power. The 1980s
MGN W12 F1 engine used rotary valves but never raced. Between 2002 and 2004 the Australian developer ''Bishop Innovation'' and
Mercedes-Ilmor
Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains (previously known as Ilmor Engineering and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines) is a Formula One engine manufacturer, owned by Mercedes-Benz.
The company supplied Sauber during the season, McLaren ...
tested rotary valves for a F1 V10 engine.
Bishop Innovations' patent for the rotary valve engine was bought out by BRV Pty Ltd, owned by Tony Wallis, one of the valves original designers. BRV has constructed several functional motors using the rotary valve technology, such as a
Honda CRF 450, which had greater torque at both low(17% increase) and high (9% increase) engine speeds, and also produced more brake horsepower up to around 30% more at functional engine speeds.
The engine was also considerably smaller and lighter, as the cylinder head assembly was not as large.
A company in the UK called Roton Engine Developments made some progress in 2005 with a two-rotor (one for inlet and one for exhaust) single-cylinder Husaberg motorcycle engine. They filed patents and got an example running in 2006, but were backed by
MG Rover
MG Rover Group was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consor ...
which subsequently went bust, leaving Roton without enough funds to continue. The designs surfaced some years later in Australia with Engine Developments Australia Pty Ltd. A prototype casting was produced in 2013 on a
Kawasaki Ninja 300
The Kawasaki Ninja 300, or EX300, is a Ninja series sport bike introduced by Kawasaki in 2012 for the 2013 model year. It is sold in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. When introduced, the Ninja 300R replaced the Ninja 250R in some ma ...
parallel twin unit. This unit is still in development phase at the time of writing but is significant as it has the potential to run much higher compression ratios than even other rotary valve engines due to a significant but undisclosed new cooling method of the combustion chamber and the ability to eliminate the throttle completely, making it vastly more economical at lower engine speeds, so it is claimed.
A proven completely successful automotive rotary valve engine has been built by the late Ralph Ogden Watson of Auckland New Zealand, during 1989. The car has covered many trouble free miles from that date and remains in use. Success was achieved as a result of Watson's academic approach to the problem of sealing, his study of previous designs, and his particular combination of knowledge of materials, machining skills, experience with engines, perseverance and realistic expectations. No new or only recently available materials were involved. Full details of the development of the car and engine appear in the book "Ralph Watson Special Engineer," first published 2004, ISBN O-476-01371-2 and available free and easily searchable, on the internet as of 2020. The car is currently owned by Ray Ferner.
Two-stroke engines
A rotary valve in the form of a flat disc, also known as a disc valve is widely used in
two-stroke
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...
motorcycle engines, where the arrangement helps to prevent reverse flow back into the intake port during the compression stroke.
Austrian engine manufacturer
Rotax
Rotax is the brand name for a range of internal combustion engines developed and manufactured by the Austrian company BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co KG (until 2016 BRP-Powertrain GmbH & Co. KG), in turn owned by the Canadian Bombardier Recreational Product ...
used rotary intake valves in their now out-of-production
Rotax 532
The Rotax 532 is a two-stroke, two-cylinder, rotary valve engine, liquid-cooled, gear reduction-drive engine that was formerly manufactured by BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG. It was designed for use on ultralight aircraft.Raisner, William: ''LEAF cat ...
two-stroke engine design and continues to use rotary intake valves in the 532's successor, the current-production
Rotax 582
The Rotax 582 is a two-stroke, two-cylinder, rotary intake valve, oil-in-fuel or oil injection pump, liquid-cooled, gear reduction-drive aircraft engine manufactured by BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG. It is for use in non-certified aircraft operating ...
.
[Raisner, William: ''LEAF catlog'', pages 6-105. Leading Edge Airfoils, 1995.]
Use in production engines
UK company ''RCV Engines Ltd'' uses
rotating cylinder liner technology as a specialized form of rotary valve in some of their four-stroke
model engine
A model engine is a small internal combustion engine typically used to power a radio-controlled aircraft, radio-controlled car, radio-controlled boat, free flight, control line aircraft, or ground-running tether car model.
Because of the squ ...
and small-engine line-up. RCV also use horizontal and vertical rotary valves in four-stroke engines in their current range of engines.
RCV have developed a 125cc rotating cylinder liner engine, incorporating a rotating valve in the cylinder liner, for scooter applications.
PGO Scooters
PGO Scooters is a brand of motor scooter manufactured by Motive Power Industry, a scooter manufacturer founded in Taiwan in 1964.
PGO entered into a technical collaboration with Italy's Piaggio (the manufacturer of the Vespa) that lasted from ...
of Taiwan were working with RCV in developing the engine for their applications.
The
Suzuki RG500 "Gamma" was powered by a two-stroke, rotary valve, twin crank, square four engine displacing 498 cubic centimeters. The power output was 93.7 brake horsepower (69.9 kW) at 9,500 RPM.
Use in chromatography
Rotary valves are used for loading samples on columns used for liquid or gas chromatography. The valves used in these methods are usually 6-port, 2-position rotary valves.
See also
*
Airlock
An airlock, air-lock or air lock, often abbreviated to just lock, is a compartment with doors which can be sealed against pressure which permits the passage of people and objects between environments of differing pressure or atmospheric compo ...
*
Itala cars
*
Piston valve
A "piston valve" is a device used to control the motion of a fluid along a tube or pipe by means of the linear motion of a piston within a chamber or cylinder.
Examples of piston valves are:
* The valves used in many brass instruments
* The va ...
*
Poppet valve
A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine.
It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...
*
Rotary feeder
*
Slide valve
The slide valve is a rectilinear valve used to control the admission of steam into and emission of exhaust from the cylinder of a steam engine.
Use
In the 19th century, most steam locomotives used slide valves to control the flow of steam into ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotary Valve
Valves
Brass instrument parts and accessories