[1]Patented June 22, 1954 296819662 UNITED ST,ATE,S PATENT OFFICE 21681,662 BALL COCK VALVE Harry F. Smith, Lexington, Ohio, assignor to Mansfield Sanitary Pottery, Irc., PerrysviUe, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio AppHeation July 27, 1949, Serial No. 107,073 4 Claims. (Cl. 137-4'37) 2 This invention relates geheralISr to ball cocks for flush tanks and -particularly to ball co-eks of the fixed hush pipe type. Prior ball cocks have been notoriously noisy due partly to removal of reffll water from the upper 5 part of the hush pipe and partly to a substantially uniform rate of closing movement of the valve. By the present invention the amount of noise has been considerably reduced and such reduction has been accomplished by means of new 10 valve means and a new manner of removing refill water' The present -invention will be better understood by those skilled in the art from the following description and the drawings which accompany 15 and form a part of this specifica;tion, and in which, Fig. 1 is a vertical, sectional view, partly in elevation, of a ball cock embodying the present invention with the parts shown in valve open :., 0 p6sition. Fig. 2 is a vertical, sectional view, with parts in elevation, of the upper end p6rtion of the apparatus of Fig. I with the valve shown in closed position; : @3 Fig. 3 is an elevational view looking in the line indicated by line 3-3 of Fig. 1; and Fig. 4 is a fragmentary, vertical, sectional view of a modified form of valve. In Figs. I to 3, the bottom wall of a flush tank 50 is shonvn fragmentarily at I and extending through the hole 2 thereof is an inlet pipe comprising a nipple or spud 3 and a small diameter tube 4. The spud 3 has a flange 5 to press a gasket'6 into liquid sealing engagement with the @,, 5 tank wall I around opening 2. A nut 7, screwed onto the spud 3, serves to complete the sealing action of flange 5 and gasket 6. The spud 3 is extended upwardly beyond flange 5 to form a hollow post a which has lateral open40 ings 0 communicating with the interior of hush pipe I 0 at its lower end@ On one side the post projects laterally to form a hollow stud II in which a refill tube 12 may be secured to receive water from within the hush pipe. 45 The portion 4 of the inlet, pipe has a valve seat at its open upper end and carries a spiral spring 15 on its outer surface, one end of the spring being secured to the pipe. The hush pipe IO is fixed in position in post 8 50 and is exteriorly threaded at its upper end to receive a valve assembly@ This assembly includes a bracket 16 havin-g screw threaded engagement with the hush pipe and a lock nut 17 therebeneath also having screw threaded engagement 55 with the liush Pipe. Bracket 16 has two upwardly projecting ears 18 and 19, an arm 20 is pivoted at one end in ear I 8 and extends across I@he top of hush pipe 10 and beyond ear 19 and has an upwardly extending part 21 provided with an opening 22 to receive one end of a lever 23 which has a float rod 24 and float 25. A valve plunger 26 is slidable endwise in hush pipe 10, has a notch 27 in its upper end to receive arm 20 and at its lower end has a tapped hole to rece,@ve a valve packing 28. This packing may be proVided with a disk 29 6f packing material to engage the valve seat at the upper end of pipe 4 and shut off the flow of wate@- through that pipe. Pref erably the veilve packing 28, when used alone, br the disk 29, when used in conjunctio-@i therewith, is of resilient deformable material, such as s6ft rubber, so that it will be deformed radially int6 fluid s6aling contact with the inner surface of liush pipe IO by the pressure exerted axially thereon by water flowing out of pipe 4. in this manner leakage of water up past the valve -ol@ug 26 while the valve is open is prevented. Since the pressure exerted on the inner surface of pipe IC by the disk 2 ei, or bhe plug 28 when. that disk is omitted, varies directly with the pi:essure of liquid on such part, it follows that the greatest pressure against the si-de wall is ivhen the valve is fully opened aiid the least pressure is when the valve is fully closed. The full pressure is sufficient @ to deform the packing against the interior surfice of the hush pipe and thereby to create enough friction to cause movement of the float even wheii submerged to an extent somewhat in excess of its normal amount 6f subm@-rgence when the valve is closed. When it reaches the extra submerged position the float overcomes the friction between the packing and hush pipe surface and moves up thereby moving the valve toward seated position. Since the pressure e:xerted on the pacldng by the waluer decreases rapidly as the valve nears its closed position, this friction decreases very rapidly near the end of the closing movement of the valve. This rapid decrease in friction permits the float to rise rapidly from its excessive submergence, in fact, almost to pop up, and thereby to close the valve very rapidly after the closing movement starts. A direct result of such increased closing speed is a marked diminution in noise. The spring 15 serves to decrease noise by causing turbulence of the water between the hush pipe and inlet pipe with resultant decrease in velocity. This turbulence is caused by the intersection of a ribbon-like stream of water flowing
[2]2,681,662 3 around pipe 4 between the turns of the spring 15 and a cylindrical stream flowing between the inner surface of pipe IO and the outer periphery of spring 15. Since the velocity of the water has been reduced 3 to a fairly low value when it reaches the lower end of the hush pipe I 0, it will flow into refill tube 12 with substantially no noise. In Fig. 4 is shown a modified form of valve in which the readily deformable resilient pack- 1( ing, soft rubber, for example, comprises a cyhn&ical body 30 which is slightly smaller in diameter than hush pipe IO, a stud 31 projecting axially from the body to enter an opening in plug 26 and position the body on the end of the plug, 15 and a thin sleeve 32 surrounding pipe 4 and deformable, by the pressure of water flowing from pipe 4, into fluid sealing contact with the inner surface of the hush pipe. When the valve is opened the water presses sleeve 32 tightly against 20 the hush pipe thereby sealing against 'Llow of water uP past plug 26 but when the valve is closing the sleeve contracts from that deformed conditi6n thereby decreasing its pressure on the hush pipe and permitting the plug to move and close 25 the valve. It will be understood that other variations of the valve assembly illustrated in Fig. I may be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention, an iinportant part of which :1,0 is a valve plug witli a deformable packing which acts alternately to close the inlet pipe and to seal the upper end of the hush pipe when the valve is open. Subject ma-tter shown but not claiined in this 35 application is being claimed in one or another of the following applications: Serial No. 759,064, filed july 5, 1947, now Patert No. 2,598,195, issued May 27, 1952; Serial 1,To. 61,646, filed Noveniber 23, 1948, now Pate,.it No. 2,609,830 issued Septem4( ber 9, 1952; and Serial No. 107,072, filed July 27, 1949, now Patent No. 2,607,364 issued August 19, 1952. Having thus descri-bed the present invention so that others skilled in the art may be able tO 4 understand and practice the some, I state that what I desire to secure by Letters Patent is defined in what is claimed. What is
