- Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is beginning to transform valve body and trim production — complex geometries that are impossible to cast or machine conventionally (optimal tortuous path trim, internal flow optimisation, lattice-structure noise-control designs) are now manufacturable in metal alloys, enabling valve designs that were previously theoretical.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to valve diagnostic data are moving beyond threshold-based alarming to genuine predictive capability — models trained on millions of valve signatures across global fleets can detect subtle deterioration patterns weeks before threshold alarms would fire, and can predict specific failure modes rather than generic alerts.
- The energy transition is driving demand for entirely new valve applications — carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, ammonia as an energy carrier, and long-duration energy storage systems each require valve engineering solutions for service conditions that existing catalogue products don’t cover, creating a wave of new valve development activity.
Valve technology has a longer innovation cycle than most process plant equipment — a well-designed globe control valve from 1990 looks remarkably similar to one designed today. But under the hood, in materials, manufacturing, digital integration, and the services they’re being asked to perform, valves are changing faster than they have in decades. This guide covers where valve technology is heading and what it means for engineers specifying and maintaining valve systems.
Additive Manufacturing: Printing Valves
Metal additive manufacturing — particularly laser powder bed fusion (LPBF, also called selective laser melting) and directed energy deposition (DED) — can produce near-net-shape metallic components directly from a CAD model by building up material layer by layer. For valve engineering, this opens up several previously impossible manufacturing capabilities:
Complex Internal Geometries
Tortuous path trim for noise control and cavitation prevention requires extremely complex internal channel geometries — narrow, winding passages that divide and recombine flow to achieve multiple pressure reduction stages. Conventional machining can produce these only with significant assembly of multiple components; casting can approximate them but with surface roughness and dimensional control limitations. LPBF can build these geometries as single-piece components with internal passages that would be impossible to machine or cast, with precise dimensional control and smooth internal surfaces.
Fisher Controls, Metso Neles, and other major valve manufacturers are actively developing AM trim designs that achieve better noise and cavitation performance than conventionally manufactured equivalents at the same body size.
Topology-Optimised Bodies
Traditional valve bodies are designed around manufacturing constraints — wall thicknesses, draft angles, and geometries that can be cast or forged. Topology optimisation (computer-calculated optimal material distribution for a defined load case) produces body shapes that use material only where it’s needed to carry stress, reducing weight significantly compared to conventional design. This is particularly valuable for aerospace-grade titanium valve bodies where material cost is significant, and for weight-critical offshore applications.
Repair and Refurbishment
DED additive manufacturing is used for repair of worn valve components — rebuilding eroded seat ring surfaces, replacing corroded stem sections, and depositing hard-facing alloys at precise locations. This extends the life of expensive large valve bodies and allows repair of components that would previously have required complete replacement.
Current limitations of AM for valves: surface roughness of as-built AM surfaces requires post-processing for seating surfaces and pressure-containing walls; material certification and qualification for pressure service requires specific testing programmes; ASME, API, and EN standards have not yet fully incorporated AM materials and manufacturing processes, creating regulatory uncertainty for pressure-containing AM valve components.
AI and Machine Learning in Valve Diagnostics
First-generation smart positioner diagnostics used threshold-based alarms — friction above X, deviation above Y. Second-generation diagnostics use pattern recognition to identify specific failure modes from diagnostic signatures. Third-generation (currently emerging) uses ML models trained on large datasets to provide genuinely predictive capability:
Fleet-Level Learning
Cloud-connected valve management platforms aggregate diagnostic data from tens of thousands of similar valves across multiple plants and customers. ML models trained on this data learn the “normal” distribution of signatures for specific valve types, services, and operating conditions, and identify statistical outliers that represent unusual deterioration patterns. A failure mode that has occurred ten times across the global fleet in similar valves will be detectable in a new valve months before it would be identified by local alarming.
Natural Language Diagnostics
Emerging valve management platforms are integrating large language model (LLM) interfaces that allow maintenance engineers to query the diagnostic data in natural language — “Which valves in Unit 3 are showing above-average friction increase in the last 6 months?” and receive structured, prioritised answers rather than requiring specialist interpretation of diagnostic charts.
Digital Twin Integration
Process simulation models (DCS historian, process simulator) combined with valve diagnostic data create dynamic digital twins that can predict not just when a valve will fail mechanically, but what the process impact of that failure will be — enabling process engineers, not just maintenance engineers, to make run-risk decisions informed by valve condition data.
New Materials for Extreme Service
High-Entropy Alloys (HEAs)
High-entropy alloys — alloys containing five or more principal elements in roughly equal proportions — exhibit unusual combinations of properties: very high strength, excellent corrosion resistance, and high-temperature stability that conventional alloys cannot achieve simultaneously. HEA research for valve trim materials is in early stages but shows promise for applications where conventional hard-facing (Stellite) or WC coatings are inadequate — particularly in extreme erosion-corrosion environments.
Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs)
Ceramic matrix composites combine ceramic fibres (silicon carbide, alumina) in a ceramic matrix, providing: very high temperature capability (to 1600°C+), very high hardness and wear resistance, and lower density than metals. CMC valve seats and trim for extreme-temperature combustion system applications (gas turbine control valves, industrial burner control) are under development. The brittleness limitation of monolithic ceramics is reduced in CMCs by the fibre reinforcement, but handling and installation requirements are still more demanding than metallic trim.
Advanced Thermal Spray Coatings
HVOF technology is well-established, but next-generation thermal spray processes — cold spray, warm spray, and hybrid HVOF-plasma processes — are producing coatings with higher density, better adhesion, and novel composition gradients that enhance both erosion resistance and corrosion resistance beyond what standard WC-Co HVOF achieves.
Energy Transition Valve Applications
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
CCS requires handling of supercritical CO₂ (above 31°C and 74 bar, where CO₂ is neither liquid nor gas). Supercritical CO₂ has very low viscosity (similar to gas) but liquid-like density. It dissolves many elastomers and causes Rapid Gas Decompression (RGD) in elastomeric seals when pressure is reduced. CCS valve specification requires: metal seats (no soft seats exposed to supercritical CO₂), metal or RGD-rated elastomeric stem seals, and body materials with CO₂ corrosion resistance (CO₂ + water = carbonic acid, which corrodes carbon steel).
Green Hydrogen and Ammonia
As covered in our hydrogen valve guide, hydrogen service presents unique embrittlement and permeation challenges. The emerging green ammonia value chain — hydrogen + nitrogen → ammonia as a shipping carrier for hydrogen energy — adds the challenges of anhydrous ammonia service (not widely encountered in most process plants but well-understood from the fertiliser and refrigeration industries) to the hydrogen engineering requirements at the hydrogen production end.
Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES)
Compressed air energy storage (CAES), liquid air energy storage (LAES), and other LDES technologies require valves for fast-cycling air compression, expansion, and thermal storage fluid distribution service. The rapid cycling duty and cryogenic temperatures for LAES (liquid air at -196°C) create valve specification challenges that are driving new product development at several valve manufacturers.
The valve industry is adapting to serve the energy transition — the companies that invest in developing and qualifying products for these new applications will lead the next wave of valve technology. As engineers, we should be helping to shape that development through clear technical specification of what these new applications actually need.