Industrial Valve Types and Their Applications: Gate, Globe, Ball, Butterfly, Check and Control Valves

Every industrial valve does one of four jobs: isolate flow, regulate flow, prevent reverse flow, or protect the system from overpressure. Selecting the right type for each job — and the right API or ASME standard behind it — is what keeps a refinery, pipeline or process plant safe and maintainable. This guide summarizes the main valve types industrial buyers worldwide will specify, and where each belongs.

Isolation valves

Gate valves (API 600, API 602)

The default isolation valve in refinery and pipeline piping classes. Full bore, low pressure drop, designed to run fully open or fully closed. Cast steel bodies to API 600 for larger sizes; forged steel to API 602 for 2 inch and below.

Ball valves (API 6D)

Quarter-turn isolation with fast operation and tight shutoff — trunnion-mounted designs to API 6D dominate pipeline and gas transmission service in importing markets worldwide.

Butterfly valves (API 609)

Compact and light, ideal for large-diameter, lower-pressure water and utility service; triple-offset designs extend butterfly valves into higher-temperature process isolation.

Regulation and protection

Globe valves (ASME B16.34)

Throttling service — the rising-plug design gives predictable flow control at the cost of higher pressure drop.

Check valves (API 594, API 6D)

Prevent reverse flow to protect pumps and compressors. Dual-plate wafer designs save weight and space; swing checks suit slurry and viscous media.

Pressure relief valves (API 526)

The last line of overpressure protection, sized and set per ASME Section VIII — never substituted, never throttled.

Control valves (IEC 60534)

Automated globe or rotary valves with pneumatic or electric actuators and positioners, holding the process variable a distributed control system demands.

Specifying valves for international projects

State the size, ASME class, body and trim materials, end connections, operator and the governing standard on the RFQ. Rastemex quotes manual and automated valves from qualified manufacturers with pressure-test certificates and full material traceability — as a written quotation, from more than one qualified source. We are capable of shipping to all parts of the world, except countries under United States sanctions and destinations restricted by law.