Valcor Engineering Corporation

News & EventsProduct News

Aircraft Capabilites & Products

By September 4, 2014 August 18th, 2021 No Comments

Valcor Aircraft Capabilities & Products

As a custom fluid control device designer and manufacturer, Valcor has provided fluid control solutions to the aircraft industry for over 60 years. Valcor is a manufacturing company that works closely with our customers to create a custom engineered solution to their demanding fluid control requirements. Valcor has produced hundreds of qualified aircraft products, for fixed wing and rotorcraft, with superior reliability. These platforms include:

Fuel Control System Components
  • Solenoid Operated Control Valve
  • Shut off Valves
  • APU Valves
  • Fuel Transfer Valves
  • Dump Valves
  • Fuel Management Systems
  • Pressure Regulators
  • Fuel Inerting Systems

Valcor’s first design, created over 60 years ago, was a floating seal shut-off valve. Valcor has produced over 3 million of this extremely reliable, lightweight, and compact design. The V5000 design is Valcor’s “flagship” design and uses a floating seal design that has demonstrated superior longevity in high contamination environments. Chances are that this valve design can be found on every commercial aircraft in service, anywhere in the world.

Valcor V5000 Series Valve

V5000 Series Valve

 

Variants of this design are used for APUs, fuel control, and fuel management systems. Valcor provides custom designs to meet customer’s specific system requirements, such as interface/envelope, materials, and power.

Shown below is an APU fuel shut-off valve that includes position indication. This valve has custom mounting and an environmentally protective hard coating.

Aircraft Mounted APU Fuel Shut off Valve

Aircraft Mounted APU Fuel Shut-off Valve

 

Valcor can retrofit designs where other vendors cannot meet performance. Valves can also be designed with special functions such as position indication, manual override, and back pressure relief.

Plug-in Style Fuel Control Valve with Position Indication

Plug-in Style Fuel Control Valve with Position Indication

Pilot Operated, Parallel, Redundant, High Flow With Manual Override and Back Pressure Relief

Pilot Operated, Parallel, Redundant, High Flow With Manual Override and Back Pressure Relief

 

Valcor’s design capabilities include manufacture of entire system assemblies. An example of this is an aircraft fuel management system containing a pump, 5 solenoid valves, relief and check valves, and pressure and temperature sensors. For this application, Valcor was able to help the customer significantly reduce overall system weight by designing the entire manifold.

Fuel Management System

Fuel Management System

 

Hydraulic Control Components
  • Hydraulic Accumulators (Piston and Bellows types)
  • Solenoid Operated Control Valves
  • Relief and Check Valves

Valcor offers several hydraulic control component designs. A major product line are our hydraulic accumulators. Valcor has been a leading manufacturer of hydraulic accumulators for aircraft, helicopters, and ground vehicles for over 20 years. Accumulator types include self-displacing and non-displacing, piston and bellows configuration, and cylindrical and spherical configurations. Valcor also produces maintenance free accumulator designs that are currently on several active platforms.

Valcor’s use of advanced composite structures and innovative metal forming techniques produce extremely lightweight designs. Valcor’s facilities are equipped to manufacture fiber overwrap on lightweight shells and liners. Overwrap fibers include steel wire, fiberglass, Kevlar®, and carbon graphite. Shell and liner materials include aluminum, steel, and titanium. Valcor can custom design an optimized lightweight, high strength accumulator for your specific requirements.

Self-Displacing Accumulator with Start Valve Manifold

Self-Displacing Accumulator with Start Valve Manifold

 

Valcor standard and self-displacing piston accumulators have many important design features. A dual seal configuration is used for positive gas-fluid separation. These accumulators are self-lubricating for extended cycle life. All accumulators have a leak tight construction. Accessories such as temperature sensors, pressure gages, piston position indication, and pressure switches can be added to the designs.

Standard and Self-Displacing Piston Configurations

Standard and Self-Displacing Piston Configurations

 

Valcor’s welded bellows style offer maintenance free designs with the highest reliability.

Welded Bellows Style Accumulators

Welded Bellows Style Accumulators

 

Valcor’s hydraulic fluid control devices also include solenoid valves, brake valves, and relief valves. Valcor has a flow control valve design that provides a tight flow range for a jet fighter hydraulic system. This valve maintains a flow range of ±2.5% for a working pressure of 5,000 psi and weighs less than 1 pound.

Hydraulic Flow Control Valve

Hydraulic Flow Control Valve

 

Valcor supplies manually operated brake valves that deliver smooth regulated pneumatic or hydraulic outlet pressure to the emergency and parking brakes. This supply pressure is proportional to the lever position. The actuation force for the lever is minimal and brake valve designs are available as single, double, or quad channel configurations.

Manually Operated Brake Valve

Manually Operated Brake Valve

 

Valcor has custom designs for combination flow relief valves. These valves incorporate a flow orifice and a relief poppet. The valve will relieve and provide higher flow capacity in operating conditions of higher system pressure. The design incorporates a mechanism to prevent valve chatter. One such valve for a gearbox oil application is shown below.

Hydraulic Relief Valve for Oil Gear Box Application

Hydraulic Relief Valve for Oil Gear Box Application

 

Environmental Control System
  • Solenoid Operated Control Valves
  • Nitrogen Generation System Valves
  • Relief Valves
  • Manifolds and Reservoirs
  • Pressure Regulators
  • Actuators

Valcor offers a wide range of fluid control solutions for environmental control system applications. These components are used on military and commercial platforms for applications such as OBIGGS, potable water systems, water condensation management, solenoid actuators, and high temperature valves. These valve designs can incorporate latching, position indication, check valve, pressure relief, or be integrated into a manifold assembly.

The valve shown below is used to cool a motor that runs an OBIGGS system. This valve is extremely lightweight and provides high flow capacity to the motor.

Motor Cooling Valve for OBIGGS

Motor Cooling Valve for OBIGGS

 

Some aircraft environments are challenging with extreme temperatures and mixed flow media. This valve shown below is part of a water extraction application used on a jet fighter platform. Often times, there is ice in the air stream and the incumbent’s solution would fail during this condition. Valcor was able to offer a design that worked despite the presence of ice.

Water Extraction Valve for ECS

Water Extraction Valve for ECS

Pressure Regulator for Potable Water and Cabin Heating on a Business Jet

Pressure Regulator for Potable Water and Cabin Heating on a Business Jet

 

Customers engage Valcor for their expertise in solenoid design. An example of this is the design of a solenoid actuator used to operate a pilot valve on an aircraft ECS. This design incorporates a rugged magnetic latch feature with high speed operation within a compact design.

Solenoid Actuator

Solenoid Actuator

Aircraft Control Systems
  • Engine Bleed Air Valves
  • Anti-Ice System Control
  • Waveguide Pressurization
  • Air Data Systems
  • OBIGGS Valves
  • Electronic Cooling Systems
  • Fuel Probe Management

Valcor designs and manufactures fluid control devices for all aspects of aircraft system control. These devices are designed to handle very high temperature engine bleed air (up to 900°F) and high contamination system conditions. Valcor’s utilizes an “isolated” pilot design to separate the solenoid from the high fluid temperatures. Seal material selection is crucial for high temperature performance.

High Temperature Shutoff Valve Used for Engine Bleed Air Control

High Temperature Shutoff Valve Used for Engine Bleed Air Control

 

Valcor utilizes a venturi throat design to minimize pressure drop through the valve. For some applications, a multiple venturi design is utilized to increase flow capacity while minimizing valve stroke and thus power consumption.

Modulating Shutoff Valve for APU Shutoff and Anti-Ice Hot Gas Valve

Modulating Shutoff Valve for APU Shutoff and Anti-Ice Hot Gas Valve

 

Valcor has valve designs that handle various fluids found in aircraft systems. The valve shown below handles PAO coolant with a coaxial flow design for easy installation.

Normally Open Control Valve for PAO Coolant System

Normally Open Control Valve for PAO Coolant System

 

Valcor can customize a solution into useful assemblies. Special poppet designs offer advantages with low leakage at high temperatures. This particular manifold mixes engine bleed air to maintain a constant outlet air temperature used for Anti-ice.

Pneumatic Assembly Manifold for Anti-Ice System

Pneumatic Assembly Manifold for Anti-Ice System

 

Manifold and assembly designs contain many different components. This includes solenoid valves, check valves, relief valves, burst disks, position indication, and pressure and temperature sensors. The assembly shown below is a regulator and shutoff valve that is a lightweight compact system featuring two-stage regulation, a relief valve, safety burst disk and a solenoid valve.

APU Start Valve

APU Start Valve – Regulates air to turbo generation for aircraft emergency power

 

The electronic cooling manifold is a four port design that monitors a coolant system for leakage. Should a leak develop, the manifold will actuate isolation valves. This manifold utilizes flow sensors to monitor for leakage.

Electronic Cooling Manifold

Electronic Cooling Manifold

 

Valcor designs extend to applications for wave guide systems. The pressurization system shown below is a self-contained assembly that provides precisely regulated absolute or gage pressure to wave guide tubes for use on radar and EMI emitters. The regulators feature a thermal compensator that outlet pressure accuracy over a large operating temperature range. This system includes a charge port, storage sphere, solenoid operated shutoff, two stage regulators, supply and exit pressure gauges, supply and exit pressure switches, and a manual test valve.

Pneumatic Pressurization System for Waveguide Tubes

Pneumatic Pressurization System for Waveguide Tubes

 

Another air system application is air data system management. Valcor has designed a magnetically latched selector valve that is used to measure aircraft air speed. The selector toggles air input between the static and pilot ports. This design is highly reliable, lightweight and has position indication.

Magnetically Latching Selector Valve

Magnetically Latching Selector Valve

 

Valcor Engineering is a custom designer/manufacturer of fluid controls for aviation (commercial and military) and space applications. Our product line is focused on solenoid valves (for fuel, hydraulic, inert gases), check valves, relief valves, pressure regulators, manifolds, and accumulators (piston and bellows type). For more information on Valcor’s products and custom capabilities, you can contact us by phone (973-467-8400) or by email (aircraft@valcor.com).

Leave a Reply