Industrial couplers not only couple things together, but they perform a whole series of different actions, depending on the coupler type. You would not think that anything so seemingly mundane as a coupler would do anything else but connect hoses and/or pipes, but they do. The following shows some of the most common actions that couplers do in an industrial setting.
Close Off and Lock
This type of coupler is most useful for controlling liquids and gasses. It connects, but it also closes off the flow and locks the line down until someone opens it again, or until it is opened via a system that remotely operates this type of coupler. It will have both internal and external components that reflect what it does and what it is capable of doing.
Pressurize
Couplers that pressurize and/or keep pressure steady are essential in gas and liquid lines where the pressure is necessary to keep constant flow. Without the coupler doing its part to create and maintain pressure, nothing in the line would move as well as it should. The liquid or gas would slow down and possibly even stagnate because of a lack of enough pressure.
Move Around Awkward Angles
These are some of the most interesting couplers, visually speaking. There are always areas in a plant where it is impossible to make things fit or make things go around an area. Maybe it is a corner turn around a ninety-degree wall, or maybe there is only a half-inch gap to fit a coupler and hose. In both of these cases, there may be an elbow coupler, an angle coupler, or a flexible coupler. It all depends on what you need it for and what you need it to do.
Drain or Strain
There are couplers designed to drain and strain, too. These couplers remove particulates of a specific size from the liquid or semi-liquid. Then they drain the rest of what has passed through them into a piece of equipment or into another line that takes the liquid or semi-liquid farther down the line. Examples of these types of couplers are used in sewage treatment plants and crude oil processing plants, where "particulates" can be large, be unpleasant, and make it difficult to process the rest of the waste or raw product without filtering out the particulates first. The variable openings in the screens of these couplers coincide with their respective and expected jobs.
