A double-disk parallel gate valve has two parallel disks that are forced, on closure, against parallel seats by a “spreader.” They are used for liquids and gases at normal temperatures. Parallel gate valves utilize a parallel-faced, gatelike seating element. Due to its design, it cannot control flow even at the beginning of opening, erosion of the seat and disk occurs, resulting in the destruction of the tight faces.

Gate valves are used less in upstream oil and gas production facilities due to high operating pressures, long opening/closing times, and severe environmental conditions when operating in marine atmospheres. Gate valves are more commonly used in refineries and petrochemical plants where pressure remains relatively low, but temperature may be very high. High-pressure service of large sizes is usually cheaper than plug or ball. Flexible disks were developed to overcome sticking on cooling in high-temperature service and minimize operating torque. The disks are made in either a solid or flexible wedge disk. Just earlier this year Steam hit 10 million concurrent users on January 7th, prior to that the record was 8.1 million on March 30th, 2020.Gate valves respond slowly, requiring numerous turns of the handwheel, to go from fully open to fully closed.

Steam has grown increasingly popular in recent years, especially once the pandemic hit sending everyone to lockdown. Releasing way back in 2003, Steam started as a client for Valve’s own games to directly send updates to, it then became a distributor for third-party titles in 2005. Most recently Fornite announced it would no longer support Windows 7 and Windows 8 due to what they stated, “In older operating systems, the growing risk of security threats as well as the lack of modern features we rely on causes us to spend an increasing amount of development time on workarounds.” There’s also Sims 4 which no longer supports any new content on 32-bit systems. So while Steam becoming axed fully from Windows 7 and 8 won’t irk the general PC gaming population, it’s amongst a growing trend in updates only being supported on Windows 10 systems. Valve says support ending for Windows 7 and Windows 8 is directly tied to what they refer to as, “an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows.” Come January 1, 2024, Steam will no longer function on both operating systems.

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