Ball valve with lockable security device

A ball valve comprising a body (10) having a valve chamber (20), inlet (18) and outlet (14) ports communicating with said valve chamber (20), a rotatable ball element (22) disposed within the valve chamber (20), said ball element (22) including means (26,27,28) defining a conduit therethrough, said ball element (22) having a rotatable shaft (54) for rotating the ball element (22) between a valve open position and a valve closed position, a control lever (56) being connected to the ball element (22) rotatable shaft (54), said control lever (56) having a downwardly depending lip (94) at the end thereof for engaging first and second stop protrusions (140,142a) integrally formed on the valve body (10), when the ball element (22) is in said open and closed positions respectively, characterized by:

• (a) a rotatable cylinder (110) being rotatably mounted on the ball element shaft (54) and having an upper end;
• (b) a retainer member (118) releasably securing said rotatable cylinder (110) to said ball element (54);
• (c) each of said stop protrusions (140,142a) extending upwardly from the valve body and having a top end;
• (d) a locking cylinder (100) having a lower end surface (146) and being telescopically mounted on said rotatable cylinder (110) and being manually slidable longitudinally on said rotatable cylinder (110) and slightly rotatable so as to permit the lower end surface (146) of the locking cylinder (100) to slidably engage the top end surface of said first stop protrusion (140), and interconnected with said control lever (56) to restrict rotational movement of the locking cylinder (100) relative to the rotatable cylinder (110) while allowing slidable longitudinal movement of the locking cylinder (100) relative to the rotatable cylinder;
• and,
• (e) a spring means (102) having one end engaged with the locking cylinder (100) and the other end engaged with the rotatable cylinder (110) to maintain a constant longitudinal bias on the locking cylinder (100) relative to the rotatable cylinder (110) to slide the locking cylinder (100) downward longitudinally from a raised position, when the locking cylinder (100) is in a valve open position and the control lever (56) is aligned with and seated in slot means (144,152) in the locking cylinder (100), and into a positive locking engagement with said first stop protrusion (140) on the valve body (10) when the control lever (56) is moved from a valve open position to a valve closed position to lock the control lever (56) and the ball element (22) in non-rotative positions.