Canada has oldest solinoid valve!

The Industrial Group of Moog Inc declared Doug Bitner, manager for the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Engineering Fluid Power Lab, the winner of its contest to find the oldest operating Moog servo valve after he sent in a video showing lab equipment running with a Moog 21 Series servo valve manufactured in 1963. 

Doug Bitner

Moog launched the contest last September as part of a celebration of the 50^th anniversary of Moog’s operations in Europe.

“I knew we had a lot of Moog valves in the lab, so I thought I had a chance,” said Bitner about entering the contest. “But it really surprised me to learn we had won.”

According to Bitner, the University of Saskatchewan is noteworthy for having one of the few undergraduate fluid power labs in North America. The winning servo valve is part of a single closed-loop test system Bitner’s students and instructors use for aerospace and industrial experiments.

“We’ve done endurance testing in the lab on agricultural equipment frames, up to 1 million cycles for high pressure,” added Bitner, “and the Moog valve still exhibits good characteristics.”

The oldest valve!

“Congratulations to Mr. Bitner for finding the oldest operating Moog servo valve; we’ve always spoken about our valves’ reliability, and Mr. Bitner proved it,” said Ari Almqvist, Group Vice President and General Manager – Industrial Services at Moog Inc. “Our valves also have a long history running in tough environments like steel production, gas turbines and industrial machinery.”

Almqvist announced that the second place winner was Walter Andreas from IABG, an analysis and testing company, who produced evidence of a 22 Series Moog valve manufactured in 1966 running on a test application in Germany. The third place award is shared by John Shannon of TATA Steel’s CPP Trostre Works in Britain. and Tom Gecse of U.S. Steel in Canada. The TATA Steel entry is a Moog 60 Series servo valve made in 1969 and operating a steering rod in the mill. The U.S. Steel entry, also a 60 Series servo valve made in 1969, operates a tension leveller in the Canadian mill. The winning prize is an Amazon Voucher for US$500, although some of the award-winners have indicated donating their prize to charity.

In 1951 William C. Moog, Jr., developed the first commercially viable servo valve. Servo valves transform a digital or analog signal into a hydraulic output such as flow or pressure.

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