Fire hydrant with improved shoe and valve

In a fire hydrant comprising:

• a barrel closed at its upper end and open at its lower end, said barrel having at least one outlet nozzle adjacent its upper end;
• an elbow shaped hydrant shoe having one end with an upwardly opening mouth, said one end being attached to the lower end of said barrel, and another end with an inlet opening lying in a plane substantially 90.degree. to a plane of the upwardly opening mouth, said other end being arranged to be attached to a water main;
• a downwardly facing valve seat ring positioned in the one end of said shoe adjacent the upwardly opening mouth;
• a valve element arranged to seat on said valve seat ring;
• a reciprocating valve stem extending from said valve element upwardly within said barrel;
• and
• operating means connected to said valve stem and extending out of the closed end of said barrel, the improvement in interior configuration of said shoe for minimizing flow loss of the hydrant between the inlet opening of said shoe and the outlet nozzle of said barrel, said improvement comprising said shoe having a cylindrical inlet passage extending from said inlet opening and a cylindrical outlet passage extending from said upwardly opening mouth, a part spherical chamber communicating with said cylindrical inlet passage and said cylindrical outlet passage, said part spherical chamber having a spherical center positioned above the axis of said cylindrical inlet passage and on the axis of said cylindrical outlet passage, a diverging transitional surface of rotation having a generally part frusto-conical shape with an axis generally parallel to the axis of said cylindrical inlet passage and said diverging transitional surface of rotation extending from a plane perpendicular to the cylindrical inlet passage and smoothly merging with said part spherical chamber at a tangential intersection with the same, and a converging transitional surface of rotation having a generally part frusto-conical shape with an axis generally parallel to the axis of said cylindrical outlet passage, said converging transitional surface of rotation extending smoothly from a tangential intersection with said part spherical chamber to a plane extending perpendicularly to an axis of said cylindrical outlet passage, said converging transitional surface merging smoothly with said diverging transitional surface.