Why Use Butterfly Valve Instead Of Ball Valve?

In certain situations, the choice of butterfly valves to replace ball valves is based on a combination of factors, including flow capacity, ease of installation, torque required for operation, temperature during use, stress, service life and price. Next, we will study and discuss these key factors in detail:
The following is a specific description of flow capacity:
The ball valve is equipped with a straight-through channel and has a flow capacity twice that of a straight-through valve of the same diameter. However, in the case of larger diameters, butterfly valves show better flow performance, thanks to their unique design concept, which ensures that the valve plate and valve shaft occupy a relatively small share of the flow channel in the open mode.
The installation process is quite convenient:
Butterfly valves are favored for their small size and light weight, especially in application scenarios of DN300 or larger diameters. Compared with ball valves, butterfly valves are lighter and smaller, which undoubtedly provides higher convenience for installation and transportation of butterfly valves.
The torque required during operation:
Butterfly valves, especially those adopting the triple-eccentric metal sealing method, produce extremely small opening and closing torques. In contrast, as the diameter of the ball valve gradually increases, the contact area of ​​its sealing surface also expands, which makes the opening and closing torque required for large-diameter ball valves more obvious.
Temperature conditions during use:
Due to the specific sealing materials and design framework used in ball valves, they are not suitable as steam transmission media. Butterfly valves are particularly suitable for conventional heating saturated steam media (below 350 degrees) that need to withstand higher temperatures, which provides butterfly valves with obvious advantages in these occasions.
The pressure you need to face is:
Due to its unique design structure, the pressure that butterfly valves can withstand is relatively significant. In environments where greater pipeline stress is required, butterfly valves may be a better choice.
The time range of use is:
Although ball valves and butterfly valves usually have a long service life (usually more than 15 years), butterfly valves use a pure metal-to-metal sealing design, which usually means that butterfly valves may perform better in terms of wear and corrosion resistance, thereby helping to extend their service life.
The prices provided are as follows:
In occasions with a diameter of DN250 (inclusive) or less, the pricing of ball valves may be more competitive in the market. However, in actual applications with diameters exceeding DN300, the price of butterfly valves usually shows a more significant advantage. This shows that it may be more economical to choose butterfly valves in large-diameter usage scenarios.
Taking various factors into consideration, butterfly valves show significant advantages over ball valves in some aspects, especially in large-diameter, frequent switching, high requirements for fluidity, and particularly cost-sensitive application scenarios. However, in the process of selecting valves, we also need to deeply consider key factors such as its specific use environment, media properties, working pressure and temperature, etc., to ensure that the selected valve can fully meet the overall needs of the system and ensure its safety.