PRCI PR-356-073509

L52297e

Tank Industry Consultants

Need: The industry need was to investigate current and potential technologies for the measurement of seal gaps in internal floating roof storage tanks, including methods of remote monitoring including a) identify existing seal gap measurement technologies and methodologies as well as individuals and/or companies who own the technologies, and b) identify other technologies that may prove useful to effectively measure seal gaps on tanks in service.

Result: Four technologies were identified as possible remote-inspection alternatives to the current general practice of inspecting and measuring internal floating roof seal gaps by placing personnel inside in-service tanks. At least two of these technologies, remote camera and x-ray imaging, are worthy of additional evaluation to assess the relative costs and reliability as alternatives to manual inspection and measurement. Remote camera technology has been applied specifically to seal gap measurement and shown to be a viable alternative to manual inspection. X-ray imaging technology appears to be viable as an alternative but has not been applied specifically to seal gap measurement and would require further development to affirm its suitability for this purpose.

Benefit: The report includes recommendations for establishing either a hypothetical or real-life seal gap measurement scenario as a model to evaluate the performance of the two recommended technologies and assess the improvements represented by the automated technologies relative to manual measurements. This model should be representative of a typical situation encountered by tank owner/operators where seal gap measurement is required.

Product Details

Published:

06/18/2009

Number of Pages:

30

File Size:

1 file , 130 KB