Following the best practices in the market and always looking for the most effective technology and raw material to offer quality products, FKB team is constantly looking for developments, tests and comparisons of each item that makes up the manufacture of its equipment portfolio .

And when we talk about gates, the ones made of Stainless Steel (AWWA C561) stand out in relation to Cast Iron (AWWA C560) in several ways.

Due to its Laminated manufacturing, allowing its conformation and custom-made construction, different from the Cast Iron which needs Mold for its manufacture, thus limiting itself by standardized measures.

With a self-adjusting seat made of elastomer, elastic material which is in contact with stainless material, it ensures perfect settlement, sealing and minimum drive torque, contrary to Cast Iron gates, which have an extremely hard bronze metal seat, and its adjustment and tightness is given through wedges, further increasing the friction and effort in the drive mechanism. And it is worth to remember that metallic seats do not guarantee 100% watertightness at any time, on the other hand elastomer do.

Due to its custom-made construction, in addition to allowing its adaptation to the work's measurements even though they are broken or non-compliant, its versatility also extends to its structure from which it is calculated and developed for the desired hydraulic pressure, Cast Iron have predefined metrics (23 MCA for Upstream and 11MCA for Downstream) due to the mold. This is a very important factor, since it ensures that the Stainless Steel Gates have a lower weight, which of course also ensures less drive torque.

Oxidation is somewhat irrelevant to Stainless Steel Gates because the material is rustproof, or in other words non-oxidizable (* 1). Which consequently eliminates Protection Paint. On the other, the Cast Iron Gates, seeking Oxidation protection, Bituminous or epoxy paintings are perform.

And to top it off, Stainless Steel Gates incredible as it may seem, still manage to get a lower cost than Cast Iron Gates.

Its weight is so smaller than Iron Gates, that besides allowing a reduced cost in drive system and assembly, it is able to compensate the difference in cost from the Raw Material, Cast Iron x Stainless Steel (* 2). 

(* 1) There are hundreds of Stainless Materials Types, and the same should be studied according to each application, in order to avoid the oxidation possibility or unexpected corrosion. In this study it was considered Inox, ASTM A240 TP 304 (AISI 304).

(* 2) According to study, stainless steel gates become more competitive from the size of 400mm.