These qualities make them an excellent choice for shutoff and control applications, where they are often preferred to gates and globe valves, but they lack their fine control in throttling applications.
The ball valve's ease of operation, repair, and versatility lend it to extensive industrial use, supporting pressures up to 1000 bar and temperatures up to 400 °C, depending on design and materials used.
The difference is based on how the pieces of the valve—especially the casing that contains the ball itself—are manufactured and assembled. The valve operation is the same in each case.
A floating ball valve is one where the ball is not held in place by a trunnion. In normal operation, this will cause the ball to float downstream slightly. This causes the seating mechanism to compress under the ball pressing against it. Furthermore, in some types, in the event of some force causing the seat mechanism to dissipate (such as extreme heat from fire outside the valve), the ball will float all the way to metal body which is designed to seal against the ball providing a somewhat failsafe design.
Manually operated ball valves can be closed quickly and thus there is a danger of water hammer. Some ball valves are equipped with an actuator that may be pneumatically, hydraulically or motor operated. These valves can be used either for on/off or flow control. A pneumatic flow control valve is also equipped with a positioner which transforms the control signal into actuator position and valve opening accordingly.