Valves take the pressure off

Greencore Chilled Sauces and Soups has boosted the efficiency of cooking vessels at its Bristol factory with new electro-pneumatic pressure reducing valves from TLV Euro Engineering.
Engineering manager Spencer Wills says: "When the vessels were first installed they were fitted with standard TLV pilot valves, which from a cold start provided 1.5 bar of steam pressure in the jacket for the initial stages of cook. However, to increase productivity we needed to increase the efficiency of the heat transfer. TLV's new CV-COS electro-pneumatic pressure reducing valves combine a convenient control function with a pressure reducing valve, separator and steam trap in one unit."
The new valves maintain a constant pressure in the jacket from start-up. Besides significantly improving heat transfer and therefore efficiency and productivity they also help Greencore to change pressure more easily when the company wants to cook different types of sauces, says Wills.