2024 SMB Exhibitions
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Unlike conventional devices, Senior’s thermal actuators and thermal valves use our welded metal bellows technology—which eliminates the need for elastomeric membranes. This approach allows for significant improvements in temperature tolerances, maintenance-free operation and high cycle life.
Traditional rubber membranes allow expansion media to leak, so devices experience performance drift—and eventual failure—over time. Our bellows construction means zero leakage of the expansion media, and so our actuators experience no performance drift.
Further, the welded metal bellows is capable of 1,000,000+ thermal cycles offering reliability that is orders of magnitude greater than conventional devices.
Thermal valves may also incorporate an integrated pressure relief function, factory calibrated to lift off of the valve seat at the specified “relief” temperature and pressure. The pressure relief mechanism uses a “tuned” spring that is factory-set and never needs readjustment.
The legacy design for a thermal actuator relied upon an elastomer-encased wax medium. Unfortunately operating temperature extremes rapidly degraded the elastomer, resulting in a very high rate of failure for this device.
Read Case StudyOur customer was looking to improve the performance of their wafer handling system. Their historical approach involved the use of an air cylinder and a welded metal bellows to seal the penetration into the vacuum chamber.
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