Groundhog Buried Butterfly Valve

With the development of the first rubber seated butterfly valve more than 70 years ago, the Henry Pratt Company became a trusted name in the flow control industry, setting the standard for product quality and customer service. Today Pratt provides the following range of superior products to the water, wastewater and power generation industries.

Henry Pratt valves represent a long-term commitment to both the customer and to a tradition of product excellence. This commitment is evident in the number of innovations we have brought to the industries we serve. In fact, the Henry Pratt Company was the first to introduce many of the flow control products in use today, including the first rubber seated butterfly valve, one of the first nuclear N-Stamp valves, and the bonded seat butterfly valve.

4" – 20" GROUNDHOG® BURIED SERVICE BUTTERFLY VALVES
Underground distribution and transmission systems most often require valves of 4" – 20", and GROUNDHOG® models in this size range are specially engineered to be buried and forgotten until needed. Components are selected for long-term reliability, so the valves will provide service life equaling or exceeding that of the pipeline.

A key design feature is the molded-in rubber seat which is bonded to the valve body by a patented Pratt process. Made of a specially compounded Buna-N rubber, the seat is engineered so that no replacement or adjustment is required throughout the life of the valve, under normal operating conditions. The unique seat retention method eliminates the possibility of “ballooning” or “blow-out” of the seat and affords more precise control of circumferential tolerance, which assures bubble-tight valve performance even in the harshest operating environment.

GROUNDHOG® BURIED SERVICE BUTTERFLY VALVES
To satisfy the demanding requirements of larger underground water distribution or transmission systems, Pratt offers a unique design for 24" through 72" GROUNDHOG® valves. Based on the successful and field-proven TRITON XR-70 rubber seat butterfly valve concept, this design assures longer seat life, bubble-tight closure and less pressure drop than conventional butterfly valves of this size and pressure class.

A unique feature of these GROUNDHOG® valves is the patented E-LOK® seating system. The body-mounted rubber seat seals a full 360° against the stainless steel disc edge. Ridges on the seat provide multiple sealing lines and permit higher levels of radial compression. As a result, rubber stress is reduced for lower seating torques, better sealing action and longer seat life. The seat is mechanically retained in the body by a cast epoxy compound which locks the seat against the disc with uniform pressure around the entire periphery, to provide a bubble-tight seal. This eliminates seat retention hardware that often corrodes, causing seats to lose sealing integrity. The design also allows easy adjustment or replacement while the valve is in the line.