Last week I worked with Tom Gallmeyer to develop a test to see how fast pressurized air flowed through a Ball valve that is currently the primary choice for our steam engine valve. The test we designed was to videotape a balloon connected to our valve inflate under water and measure the time and height change of the water to calculate a flow rate.
    We ran this test on different valve opening and length of openings and created some repeatable data for the rate of flow through our valve which was above 500in^3/sec for fully opened. The really fun videos however, came from when we ran explosive tests on the balloon. Below is an example of inflating the balloon until failure. The pressurized air is at 60 psi and the test rig was designed and built by tom and myself.... enjoy

Valve Test to Failure from Chad Gibbs on Vimeo.