Various types of Ball Valves available in the market
Ball valves consist mostly of a body, a sphere-shaped plug, and seats. There are three common designs for ball valves, and they are called full port, reduced port, as well as venturi port. The internal diameter of the full-port valve is the same as the pipe's internal diameter. The port is often smaller than the line size in venturi and reduced-port designs. O-ring seals as well as Bolted packing glands provide stem sealing. Valves with a lubricant-seal mechanism, analogous to plug valves, are also commercially available. The number of ports and the number of seats determines whether a ball valve is one-way, two-way, or three-way. Ball valves can have two, three, four, or five ports, hence the names 2-way, 3-way, 4-way, and 5-port valves. If there is only one seat in a two-way ball valve, then the flow will only go in one direction. When flow is restricted to a single inlet, even a multi-port ball valve such as a 3-, 4-, or 5-way version can be unidirectional. A bidirectional val...