A gate valve, also known as a sluice valve, is a valve that opens by lifting a round or rectangular gate/wedge out of the path of the fluid. The distinct feature of a gate valve is the sealing surfaces between the gate and seats are planar, so gate valves are often used when a straight-line flow of fluid and minimum restric-tion is desired. The gate faces can form a wedge shape or they can be parallel. Typical cast steel gate valve should never be used for regulating flow, unless they are specifically designed for that purpose. On opening the gate valve, the flow path is enlarged in a highly nonlinear manner with respect to percent of opening. This means that flow rate does not change evenly with stem travel. Also, a partially open gate disk tends to vibrate from the fluid flow. Most of the flow change occurs near shutoff with a relatively high fluid velocity causing disk and seat wear and eventual leakage if used to regulate flow. Typical flanged gate valve are designed to be fully opened or closed.[1] When fully open, the typical gate valve has no obstruction in the flow path, resulting in very low friction loss

forged steel gate valve are characterised as having either a rising or a nonrising stem. Rising stems provide a visual indication of valve position because the stem is attached to the gate such that the gate and stem rise and lower together as the valve is operated. Nonrising stem valves may have a pointer threaded onto the upper end of the stem to indicate valve position, since the gate travels up or down the stem on the threads without raising or lowering the stem. Nonrising stems are used underground or where vertical space is limited.