How does a thermal bypass valve work, specifically in a car.
Water flowing into the valve is directed to two outlets. One outlet directs water back into the engine to recirculate and the other outlet directs water to a radiator where its cooled and the returned back to the engine. The amount of flow diverted to these outlets depends upon the position of the valve disk. In a car engine the water is constantly recirculating through the ports of the engine and the thermostat is located in one of these passage ways. The thermostat and its valve creates a third port or second outlet that allows water to flow to a radiator. When the valve is closed the water bypasses the radiator and recirculates hrough the engine. How much flow is diverted to the radiator is done by a temperature sensitive component that causes mechanical movement of the valve position based on the water temoerature flowing through the valve. the hotter the water the more flow that is diverted to the radiator to cool. The colder the water less flow is sent to the radiator and more flow is recirculated back to the engine bypassing the radiator. The mechnical sense element of what is commonly called a thermostat is called a pill. It consists of a sealed unit which for lack of a better description acts like a piston inside a cylinder and the cylinder is filled with wax. This piston is free to move back and forth but is limited in its movement because the wax is incompressible and a spring is pushing the piston back agains the wax. Now as the temperature warms up the wax melts and the liquid wax expands as it heats up. As the wax expands the piston is moved agains the spring and the shaft attached to the piston is used to move a disk away from the seat of the valve and allows more water to flow to the radiator.
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Many block valves in steam systems have much smaller bypass valves designed to make it easier to control the heating of cold steam lines during startup. Some control valves have by pass valves to permit work on the control valve without interrupting service. The heat exchangers have by pass valves so they can be taken out of service if they are not needed or for repair and maintenance.
