What’s poppin’? Why that noise your valve makes is good

Sometimes it sounds as if an old west gunslinger is shooting around your plant, but that popping noise you hear could mean you have a poppet valve in your plant. Poppet valves are robust air valves, often lasting millions of cycles. This makes them one of the most commonly used for safety as well as dirt tolerance. Poppet valves have a number of features that make them a great valve.

For a great valve, you don’t need the popping noise, but it reflects the strength of the valve. The noise you are hearing when a poppet valve closes is actually the poppet slamming against the seat. It’s a reverberation because of the force the valve is closed with. This holding force means that leakage across a valve is less than a traditional spool valve.

In addition to less leakage, a poppet valve is also more dirt tolerant. Because air flows around the entire poppet, as the poppet closes, the velocity of air across the sealing surface speeds up, and cleans the seal itself. This makes a poppet better for situations in dirty environments such as foundries. It also prevents damage to the seal from cuts and scrapes, which makes for a longer lasting seal.

Every rubber seal will wear over time with agitation, but a poppet valve compensates for any seal wear, making the valve more robust. When a poppet seal wears, it will reduce in size due to the force of the poppet. As the seal wears, the poppet will seal against the reduced sealing surface which allows it to compensate for the wear.

Combine wear compensation, dirt tolerance and low leakage and you have a great valve. You can see why a poppet lasts millions of cycles and is the premier safety choice.