Neles delivered its first valves for the pulp and paper industry back in the 1950’s. Early on, we established a culture of innovation and continuous development. Many of the products and features we have developed over the years have become industry standards, and still act as the basis for many of the modern valve solutions in use today.
With strong roots in the pulp and paper industry, it is no wonder that many of the industry-specific valve innovations still used today can be traced back to us. The capping valve for batch cooking was developed by Neles already back in the 1960s. NelesAce™ valve for basis weight control and the ceramic ball valves for erosive applications are a few more examples of the pulp and paper -specific innovations from along the way.
As a good example of standard industry applications, the fundamental design of our metal-seated automated valves developed in the 60s and 70s, is still the benchmark for modern high-performance valves. Also, today’s industry leading Q2-trim technology for noise reduction in control valves, is based on the Q-trim noise and anti-cavitation reduction technology, which we brought to market already in the 80s.
To support project engineering, the Nelprof™ valve sizing tool was released in the mid-nineties and is still based on standard IEC60534. Largely due to the fact that it enables standardized fluid dynamics calculations based on given process conditions in installed process piping, it is still the industry’s premier selection and sizing tool today.
Some of the more recent pulp, paper and bioproducts innovations coming to market have been based on strong utilization of digitalization. This started in the late 90s with the ND-series positioners and was followed by data management development with true on-line history trends, starting in the 2000s, and device network management solutions in 2010. Now we are focusing even further on real installed asset data management and functional monitoring solutions for operational process control loops.
The latest additions to our valve portfolio include
- Neles™ RE segment valves for large on-off applications
- Neles™ M series ball valves for large, high capacity applications
- Neles™ G series globe valves in power making applications
- Neles™ NDX2511 valve controllers for pulp and paper
As early adopters of the digital era, we have been pioneers in the field of intelligent valve controllers. This year will see the launch of the pulp and paper-specific version of our flagship valve controller product, the Neles™ NDX. Digitalization has sped up the development and transformation of the pulp and paper industry at large, and a lot has also changed in terms of controllers since the first ND8-series controllers rolled out at the end of the past millennium (1996).
Over the past decade, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the networking of intelligent devices together with improved capabilities of digital data utilization in many aspects, has opened doors for further opportunities to practically improve the performance of processes and businesses in cooperation with our customers.
Today we have a wide range of digital products in place and services to help our customers achieve better efficiency, stability, safety and sustainability across the entire value chain and mill lifecycle.
Text: Ilpo Miettinen
Text originally published in 2019, and slightly updated in April 2022, due to the company name change to Valmet.
