Standard ball valves include things like the housing, seats, ball and lever for ball rotation. They include ball valves with two, three and four ports which may be female or male threaded or perhaps a combination of those for more . Threaded valves are most frequent and come in several varieties: ball valves with approvals for specific media or applications, mini ball valves, angled ball valves, ISO-top ball valves, ball valves with the integrated strainer or even a bleed point plus the list continues. They have a number of options as well as a large operating range for pressure and temperature.
Ball valves are perhaps one of the most reliable form of valve and are also commonly used for main water shutoffs and then for branch line shutoffs. Like gate valves, a ball valve is made as an all-or-nothing valve-they must be either fully accessible to allow full flow, or fully closed to avoid all discharge. Internally, these valves use a ball having a hole in the center, that is connected to a lever-type outer handle. When the handle is parallel to your water supply pipe, the valve is open; if it's perpendicular, the valve is closed. This handle serves as a handy visual aid which means you know immediately whether the water is ON or OFF.
A trunnion ball valve has additional mechanical anchoring from the ball at the top as well as the bottom, appropriate for larger and pressure valves (say, above 10 cm and 40 bars).
A floating ball valve is certainly one where the ball just isn't held in place using a trunnion. In normal operation, this could cause the ball to float downstream slightly. This causes the seating mechanism to compress underneath the ball pressing against it. Furthermore, in most types, in case of some force allowing the seat mechanism to dissipate (for instance extreme heat from fire away from valve), the ball will float all the way to metal body which is made to seal up against the ball providing a somewhat failsafe design.
Manually operated ball valves could be closed quickly therefore there is a danger of water hammer. Some ball valves are equipped by having an actuator that could be pneumatically, hydraulically or motor operated visit here . These valves may be used with either on/off or flow control. A pneumatic flow control valve is usually equipped which has a positioner which transforms the control signal into actuator position and valve opening accordingly.