AUMA actuators support San Francisco water infrastructure scheme

Marty Gustafson, Northwest Regional Manager at AUMA USA, inspects the GS 630.3 gearbox supplied to San Francisco’s WSIP project.
Marty Gustafson, Northwest Regional Manager at AUMA USA, inspects the GS 630.3 gearbox supplied to San Francisco’s WSIP project.

The WSIP is a major restoration initiative to upgrade a 100 year old water supply system of reservoirs, treatment plants, valves and pipelines that stretch 150 miles east of the City of San Francisco.

AUMA provided more than 250 actuators to 30 individual projects that were part of the scheme. The challenging specification called for robust cast iron grease filled gear housings, flexible control orientations, extended duty motors and a complete range of tested and documented products to serve valve torques from 60 to over 400,000 N.m (50-300,000 ft.lb).

The company supplied more than 100 actuators for large 48-144” diameter valves. The actuator devices were all weatherproof SA multi-turn actuators or combinations of SA actuators with GS part-turn gearboxes and GK multi-turn gearboxes. The actuators were equipped with AUMA’s integrated AM controls or custom-made valve control panels supplied as a turnkey package.

AUMA’s largest SAR14/GS630.3 actuator/gearbox combination was chosen to modulate and control the flow of water to a 54” metal seated ball valve rated to withstand the high levels of water pressure of over 17 bar produced by the San Antonio Reservoir in Northern California. The GS 630.3 gearbox is capable of producing up to 675,000 N.m (495,000 ft.lb) of torque and is suited for both open/close and modulating duties.