Rotork electric actuators are being installed in the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers 'HMS Queen Elizabeth' & 'HMS Prince of Wales'.
Each ship will be home to more than 1200 Rotork actuators, mostly operating ball and butterfly valves on duties encompassing sea water, fresh water, chilled water, fuel and fire-fighting systems.
The low maintenance demands of electric actuation made an important contribution to the contract award decision, as did Rotork’s ability to satisfy all the specified requirements with commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products. Rotork’s ability included the provision of Profibus two-wire digital network connectivity, combined with proprietary non-intrusive configuration and data transfer technologies and the availability of sophisticated valve diagnostic information, facilitated by integral actuator data loggers.
For duties that are important for the integrity of the vessels’ hulls, Rotork is supplying IQTN direct drive quarter-turn actuators, which have been developed from a market-leading commercial industry design to specifically meet the demands of naval marine duties. The IQTN design has been independently tested for shock tolerance and its overall size has been reduced to lower its centre of gravity and account for shipboard space restraints.
The majority of the remaining applications will be operated by Rotork ROMpak actuators, another specially developed design, introduced to provide the marine industry with a lightweight and compact solution for the operation of quarter-turn valves and dampers. All the Rotork actuator designs provide the option of local and remote control with a manual override.