Burocco Industrial Valves has designed and manufactured stainless steel industrial valves for regulating, shutting off, and turning on the flow of water and other fluids since 1954. Today, Burocco produces some of the world’s best-performing industrial valves, including control valves, pneumatic on/off valves, manual Y-type valves, ball valves, specialty valves, and accessories.
Burocco relies on SOLIDWORKS design, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, product data management (PDM), and technical communication solutions to develop some of the world’s best-performing stainless steel industrial valves.
Burocco offers a wide product range in the industrial valves sector specialized in control valves, on-off valves, manual valves, but also ball valves. The company’s product portfolio perfectly complements our current array of products and serves as a strategic addition to our Intec and KFC range. Burocco is a well-established supplier to the chemical and general manufacturing industry but also serves as a partner for many other industries. The recently launched cryogenic valves range is especially known in the medical and pharmaceutical industry. Burocco’s net sales have been continuously on the rise for many years and profitability remains at a high level.
Challenge:
Incorporate fluid-flow simulation studies during the development of industrial valves to calculate, predict, and optimize fluid flow within valves to improve performance without conducting costly rounds of physical prototyping.
Solution:
Replace the prior 3D design solution with SOLIDWORKS design, SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional product data management (PDM), and SOLIDWORKS Composer technical communication software solutions
Benefits:
- Shortened design cycles by 25 percent
- Predicted fluid flows with 98 percent accuracy
- Increased design reuse by 50 percent
- Eliminated turbulence within valves without physical prototyping
IMPROVING FLUID FLOW WITH SIMULATION
Since implementing SOLIDWORKS design and SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation CFD analysis software, Burocco engineers are able to identify and resolve areas of turbulence within the fluid flows that its valves regulate — turbulence that can degrade valve performance. “We always have to keep in mind the possibility that the valve geometry can create turbulence, which makes the flow ‘dirty’,” Palestro notes.
“Using SOLIDWORKS and SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation, we not only come to understand where areas of turbulence damage the clean flows that we need, but also determine how changes to the valve design can smooth the flow, reducing prototyping and machining costs,” Palestro adds. “In just a few minutes, our engineers can use SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation to calculate everything they need with an accuracy of 98 percent. This enables us to improve product performance.”
SAVING TIME, REUSING DESIGNS
In addition to relying on SOLIDWORKS design and SOLIDWORKS Flow Simulation analysis solutions to develop and produce high-quality industrial valves, Burocco discovered additional integrated SOLIDWORKS solutions that have had a positive effect on its design and manufacturing operations. The company acquired SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional to improve management of its product design data, and SOLIDWORKS Composer technical communication software to automate development of product documentation.
“With the SOLIDWORKS PDM system, we gained the ability to quickly search all of our prior design data electronically,” Palestro notes. “Because it’s so much easier to locate and reuse a prior 3D model than finding a 2D drawing and remodeling it, our design reuse has increased by 50 percent. With greater design reuse, our design cycles are shortened, saving us more than 25 percent in design time.”
REPLACING CABINET FULL OF DRAWINGS WITH PDM
Prior to moving to the SOLIDWORKS platform, Burocco maintained all of its design drawings, user manuals, and parts catalogs as paper in cabinets and drawers, making data management a tedious, manual process. The valve manufacturer now enjoys the benefits of a completely paperless system.
“We used to store all of our design drawings and supporting documentation in cabinets containing a lot of paper,” Palestro points out. “With SOLIDWORKS PDM and SOLIDWORKS Composer, we’ve simplified the entire process and now completely avoid the use of paper. In many ways, SOLIDWORKS is helping us become more efficient and effective.”
