Lightweight valve wins over investors

Inline pressure regulator has no pressure housing and is installed directly inside pipework, making it 80% lighter

The company behind an innovative lightweight valve design promising to disrupt industrial markets has won £750,000 of private backing and is ready to send out trial units of its first product.

Oxford Flow, a spin-out from Oxford University’s department of engineering science, received funding to bring its inline pressure regulator to market last month from Oxford Sciences Innovation. The investment company is backed by several high-profile investors, including the Wellcome Trust and Google.

The inline pressure regulator is the first of what the company says will be a series of industrial products. It has no pressure housing and is installed directly inside pipework, instead of being set into a casting or forging, making it 80% lighter. Its design also eliminates many of the ancillary parts found in conventional regulators, such as external power sources for actuation.

Professor Tom Povey, founder and technical director of Oxford Flow, said: “We’ve shown it to people and they are completely blown away.

“It’s a great simplification, one that allows the important parts of the valve to be directly integrated into the flow system. It enables more precise control and higher speed by the way the cap is actuated. It is directly effected by the downstream flow pushing it closed.

“In terms of precision, you can run your pipe network closer to the targeted system pressure. We also expect it to be significantly cheaper in operation because it has less moving parts.”

The regulator is particularly suited to larger pipes up to 48 inches in diameter. “The benefits become greater the bigger you get,” Povey added. 

The pressure regulator has undergone field trials and Oxford Flow is targeting the water industry and gas distribution networks first.