Motor drive for buried water gate valves
A battery motor drive that drops through the existing valve box onto a buried gate valve, so the street is not dug up.
The hard part
Everything fits a 146 mm protective pipe with an off-centre stem and drops through the existing valve box, so the street is not dug up.
What I built
The invention itself, a custom planetary gearbox checked with FEA, a stem latch, a 24 V LFP battery pack and a 4G control concept. A butterfly-valve variant followed.
Result
Vietnamese utility solution application No. 2-2024-00774.
The problem
Water networks have many gate valves buried under streets, reached only through a narrow valve box. Motorizing one normally means excavating it and fitting an actuator above ground.
The approach
The drive is built as a slim cylinder that goes down the existing protective pipe and couples to the valve stem. The stem sits off-centre in a 146 mm pipe, so the gearbox, the stem latch, the 24 V LFP battery and the 4G controller all had to be arranged around that offset. The drive also must not cause water hammer in the main.
Development
- Five prototype generations.
- A custom planetary gearbox, checked with static FEA.
- A butterfly-valve variant using the same drive module.
- Utility solution application No. 2-2024-00774 filed in Vietnam.