NASA and Flowserve Collaboration Launches New Valve Technology

NASA and Flowserve Collaboration
              Launches New Valve Technology

At the Stennis Space Center near Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, NASA
engineers had a problem. At the Stennis Space Center near Bay Saint
Louis, Mississippi, NASA engineers had a problem. Their process of
testing various rocket propulsion systems was running into an
expensive snag, hanging on high-pressure control valves that needed
to be switched out and replaced for each test.

NASA and Flowserve Collaboration
Launches New Valve Technology
Joint development solves NASA’s need to cut costs and improve flexibility

At the Stennis Space Center near Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, NASA engineers had a
problem. Their process of testing various rocket propulsion systems was running into an
expensive snag, hanging on high-pressure control valves that needed to be switched out
and replaced for each test.

Stennis uses these valves, in both ambient and cryogenic configurations, for the flow
control of oxygen, hydrogen, and other propulsion propellants used in their rocket engine
and component test facilities. Stennis is famous as the main propulsion testing center for
NASA, and is where the Space Shuttle main engines are tested and certified.

Propulsion tests can include measurements of temperature, pressure, flow regulation,
engine design validation, and material and component performance. Engineers at Stennis
have historically employed inline, top-entry valves in these high-pressure performance
tests because the top-entry design was perceived to limit external leakage.

But inline, top-entry valves have their drawbacks. They are expensive and have long
face-to-face lengths of up to six feet. NASA also needed the flexibility to change the trim
size on its valves to meet the differing flow control requirements of individual tests.
Since the trim size cannot be changed on the type of inline forged valves that NASA
normally uses for these applications, NASA engineers were forced to stock multiple
valves for a single test sequence — for example, testing an engine or component using
several propellant flow rates.

When Failure Is Not an Option
To find a solution, NASA engineers turned to Flowserve Valtek Control Products, a
leader in flow control for the aerospace industry. NASA recognized Flowserve as a
solutions provider and initiated contact to see if the company could address its needs. The
contact between NASA and Flowserve was originated through the Stennis Propulsion
Test Directorate, which directs and manages the operational and engineering functions
for rocket engine testing at Stennis.

Considering the drawbacks of inline, top-entry valves, NASA engineers thought a
solution might be to try an inline, split-body valve, which would allow them to change
trim sizes without taking the valve out of service to meet testing requirements. If
Flowserve could build a split-body valve for NASA, it would provide tremendous
flexibility in testing and save on valve inventory expense.

NASA engineers were cautiously optimistic. In their experience, split-body valves,
particularly those used in cryogenic applications, were prone to external leakage and seat
leakage. Additionally, in NASA’s high-pressure engine testing applications, engineers
who wanted to use a split-body design were typically design-limited to an offset body as
opposed to an inline design. This is because inline split-body valves typically have to use
castings instead of forged body assemblies. NASA prefers inline valves because they are

inherently easier to work with, as their body geometry enables simpler installation than
that of offset valves.

                                                              Ultra-high pressure bottle
                                                           delivery to the E-1 test stand at
                                                                Stennis Space Center.

                                                             A test firing at the E-1 test
                                                           stand at Stennis Space Center.

                                                            NASA personnel working on
                                                            the E-1 test stand at Stennis
                                                                   Space Center.

Valve Technology Is Rocket Science
To see if their idea would fly, field and design engineers
from NASA and Flowserve worked to create a valve that
would simplify installation and maintenance, allow for
trim size changes, and minimize inventory requirements,
thus reducing cost. Combining NASA’s vast experience
with high-pressure aerospace applications and
Flowserve’s extensive application, design, and testing
experience in the liquid natural gas, upstream oil and
gas, and aerospace markets, the team generated a set of
technical solutions that met NASA's requirements for
high-pressure, cryogenic, rocket propulsion tests.

Because NASA’s requirements included both ambient
and cryogenic applications, Flowserve began by
integrating its leading-edge control valve technology
into the valve's seals, stem packing, and mechanical
design for the required temperature ranges. In the first
stage of the process, the body of the valve was divided      The valve that resulted from
into an upper and a lower section, with its seat ring          the Flowserve-NASA
sandwiched in between. To maintain the stem packing at              collaboration.
an acceptable sealing temperature for cryogenic service,
the design team added heat-absorbing fins to the upper-
body section of the valve.

With the valve body made of stainless steel, project team engineers designed the seat ring
in a nickel-based alloy with a coefficient of thermal expansion less than that of the body
material. This enabled the body surrounding the seat ring to contract more than the seat
ring when the valve interior was cryogenically cooled, preventing external leakage at the
body-seat joint. Engineers also machined the seat ring to have small, raised-face sealing
surfaces on both sides of the seal groove, which concentrate the body bolt-load over a
small area and work to prevent external leakage.

Preparing For Launch
The new valve’s body bolt-circle design is also different from those in conventional high-
pressure control valves, with half of the bolts clamping the split-body together from the
top and half from the bottom. This design allows a short, clean flow path, minimizing
frictional flow losses and shortening the face-to-face length of the valve. While a
conventional class 4500 valve with a nominal C v of 120 has a face-to-face dimension
greater than 40 inches, the NASA-Flowserve split-body valve is only 25.5 inches long.

“This was an entirely collaborative and iterative process, with contributors from NASA
and Flowserve providing their expertise and contributions to the success of this project,”
says Michael Yentzen, an engineer on the project who is now a legislative affairs
specialist at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC.

“NASA trusted us as a cooperative partner to get them the solution they needed,” says
Karlin Wilkes, Flowserve Valtek control valve marketing manager, and one of the
engineers who worked on the project. “We solved every issue as it arose, getting input
and feedback from NASA’s engineers during each step of the design process.”

“You could truly call this a team effort,” says Wilkes. “We spent a year working together,
and the end result has really paid off.”

Mission Accomplished
Pre-launch tests included cryogenic testing at Flowserve labs, then at Stennis, and then
together in final validation tests. At Stennis, the valve was bubble-tight at 11,250 psig,
even at cryogenic temperatures. Following the design process, NASA ordered additional
Flowserve split-body valves in varying sizes for other applications in the same system.

The new applications for the additional split-body valves include transfer-line isolation
and tank venting at Stennis. NASA has slated the new split-body design as a flow control
valve in an RP-1 (refined petroleum) fuel run-line in a facility currently under
construction at Stennis.

“We’re very pleased with the product we developed,” adds Yentzen. “This valve design
will save NASA a significant amount of money and will make rocket test operations at
Stennis simpler and more efficient.”

NASA engineers wrote up the results of the design process in a NASA Tech Brief, and
are looking forward to working with Flowserve again. Flowserve engineers believe the
new valve will have multiple applications across the aerospace and industrial gas
industries, as well as in markets such as upstream oil and gas, and steel.

“I would say this was clearly a mission accomplished,” says Wilkes. “We’re looking
forward to opportunities in the future to use this type of collaborative process with NASA
and with other Flowserve customers.”

For more information, contact Karlin Wilkes, control valve marketing manager,
Flowserve Valtek Control Products, by phone at (801) 489-2645 or by e-mail at
kwilkes@flowserve.com. Visit Flowserve on the web at www.flowserve.com.

Collaborative Product Design Takes Flight
Process can drive innovation and reduce product life cycles and costs

In today’s product design landscape, two forms of the design process are typical. The first
process, a sort of “build it and they will come” method, rests entirely on supplier-side
engineering teams designing a product and hoping it sells in the market.

The second form of design common in today’s engineering environment is custom
engineering. In the custom engineering process, customers turn over specifications to a
supplier and let the supplier design from there.

But an evolution of the product design process from the supplier-side paradigm is
underway. The emerging process, called collaborative product design, lets teams of
supplier and customer engineers to work together to drive product innovation, shorten life
cycles, reduce costs, and limit the many design changes that can result from a single-
sided design process.

For fluid motion and control specialists, Flowserve Corp., and NASA, the collaborative
process that led to a new valve design combined the resources of each team’s engineers

and testing facilities. The end-result was a better product that satisfied the needs of each
participant.

Flowserve earned the rights to a new valve technology, saving time and effort in the
process, and delivered a valve design that will save NASA money and improve its rocket-
testing procedures. Through effective collaboration, Flowserve and NASA produced an
innovative product that might not have been as easily attainable using conventional
design methodology.

Collaboration is not a simple process. It requires engineers willing to innovate inside an
unusually cooperative customer/supplier partnership that features a high level of trust by
participants for both partners.

Certain industries, such as information technology, were early adopters of the
collaborative product design processes. Computer Sciences Corporation, a leading global
information technology services company, is a case in point. Computer Science’s director
for manufacturing solutions, Michael Bauer, believes there are defined ways in which
companies can make the collaborative product design process effective and rewarding for
all participants. Bauer says a first step is the elimination of duplication in process, people
and technology.

To do this, organizations in a collaborative engineering process need to designate one
owner per process, based on "best fit.” This requires managers in a collaborative project
to match the right person to the right process by identifying and agreeing on key skill
sets. By streamlining a project in this way, managers give individual process owners
responsibility and control while reducing waste and cost.

Critical also in the management of a collaborative product design process is setting
agreements on functions like administration and finance, and clearly spelling out the
ownership of intellectual property rights. Being proactive in delineating responsibility for
these sometimes thorny issues is the hallmark of a well-managed collaborative design
project.

Other ways to improve product design collaboration include: integrating process teams to
fuse silos of product design, strategic sourcing, buying, and program management;
encouraging shared governance to drive radical changes in performance, cycle time
reduction, and costs; maintaining a balanced scorecard to reward new skills and roles for
process owners; and promoting changes to the status quo, upstream and downstream.

Ultimately, the success of collaborative product design rests on how well supplier
engineers can build and manage the process to completely tailor the project to meet the
customer’s needs. “Everyone on the supplier side needs not to lose the focus on the needs
of the customer during every phase of the product design process,” says Bauer. “Our goal
should be not just to deliver a product, but to make our customer successful. It just can’t
be business as usual.”

Bauer says companies taking on the collaborative product design process must, at the
bottom line, be able to remove the barriers that commonly hamper internal and customer-
supplier communication by insisting on upsetting the status quo. Continually adapting to
each partner’s procedures and needs builds flexibility that can drive the process to a

design solution that both sides desire.

Karlin Wilkes, control valve marketing manager for Flowserve Valtek Control Products,
and an engineer who worked on the NASA project, agrees. “Fundamentally, collaborative
product design is a new way of doing business,” he says. “It allows Flowserve to take
advantage of and deepen long-standing customer relationships, and employ
complementary engineering and design strengths to build the best possible solutions for
our customers. A natural byproduct of a successful collaborative effort is a trust-based
relationship that builds continued success for all partners.”