I was asked to chair the third day of the Second Annual Bulk Liquid Storage Tanks Conference held from 25 to 27 June at the Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre. The feedback from the 47 delegates was immensely positive regarding the content, the calibre of speakers, the conference's ability to present new ideas and providing the opportunity to establish new business relationships.
Vivian MacFadyen
Although this industry only requires a narrow array of instrumentation, the different speakers opened up intriguing understanding of a subject that many of us do not even consider under usual circumstances. Did you know that large tanks, the type you see whilst passing a petroleum refinery, are continuously moving?
As they fill up, they get fatter and shorter. The temperature of the product causes expansion and contraction. These movements, even though they are measured in a few millimetres make it difficult to automatically measure the volume of product in the tank.
If you mount a level gauge on the top of the tank, the gauge goes up and down, or the cross sectional area changes. This makes a simple formula of πr²xh impossible to apply. Obviously, this applies to accurate measurement required for custody transfer, if you are simply preventing the tank over-filling or being sucked dry, you could almost use a plastic bag.
This highlights the fact that the instrument application engineer needs to fully understand an application before specifying a gauge. It is no good supplying a gauge suitable for 1 mm accuracy if the mounting structure moves up and down by 10 mm, and wobbles in the wind. Well, now I am on my old hobby-horse - skills. If we do not have students that have studied physical science in their schooling, how will they even hope to understand the implications of industrial measurement, let alone use a tape measure?
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