This past September, we covered Moog’s oldest-valve contest, in which manufacturers submitted pictures of their oldest operating valves with the corresponding model number to find the valve with the most impressive service life. The contest was in celebration of Moog’s 50th anniversary of operations in Europe.
And the winner is… Doug Bitner, manager for the University of Saskatchewan's College of Engineering Fluid Power Lab, who submitted photos of lab equipment running with a Moog 21 Series servo valve manufactured in 1963.
"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." He added that the valve was still in operation after 1 million cycles of endurance testing for agricultural equipment frames at high pressure.
"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, Moog Inc. "Our valves also have a long history running in tough environments like steel production, gas turbines, and industrial machinery."
The second place winner is Walter Andreas from IABG, an analysis and testing company in Germany, with a 22-Series Moog valve manufactured in 1966. It is being used to run test applications.
John Shannon of TATA Steel's CPP Trostre Works in the U.K. and Tom Gecse of U.S. Steel in Canada share third place. Their 60-series servo valves, manufactured in 1969, are both applied in mills, one for a steering rod and the other for a tension leveller, respectively.
Some of the award-winners have indicated donating their 500-USD Amazon-voucher prizes 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.
