Orbit Valve (Cameron)

Orbit Valve, founded in 1947 in Little Rock, Arkansas and now part of the Cameron division of SLB, is the inventor and namesake of the Orbit rotating ball valve, one of the most distinctive valve mechanisms ever patented. Unlike a conventional floating or trunnion ball valve, the Orbit design tilts and rotates the ball a quarter turn without rubbing against the seat rings, wiping the sealing surface on every stroke and dramatically reducing wear in dirty, abrasive or high-cycle service. This makes Orbit valves the preferred choice for refinery switching and manifolds, hydrocarbon transmission, metering stations and hot oil systems where ordinary ball valves leak or jam. The valves provide true bidirectional block-and-bleed capability in a single body, allowing cavity verification without line break. Orbit remains a specification staple in North American refining, and its cam-action principle has been licensed into numerous other severe-service valve lines over the decades.