Study of air mobility and liquid mass loss during ventilation of an experimental tank

Abstract

Introduction. Activities related to the repair and maintenance of vertical tanks of various design types are carried out both according to the work plan and unscheduled. Such work is often facilitated by both the expiration of the service life of obsolete tanks and corrosion of the internal surfaces, which is one of the main factors affecting the life of the tank. Goals and objectives. Due to the fact that volatile oil products are often stored in tanks with a pontoon, their repair and maintenance is an extremely fire and explosion hazardous event. To provide an explosion-proof vapor-air environment, forced ventilation is used, and special attention is drawn to recent studies devoted to an innovative "vortex" method of organizing ventilation of the internal space of the tank, which has not been previously used on a tank with a pontoon. Methods. To substantiate the effectiveness of the application of an innovative method of organizing ventilation for a tank with a pontoon, empirical research methods were used, as well as analytical numerical calculations to determine the average theoretical air mobility. Results and its discussion. The article proposes to pay attention to the innovative way of organizing ventilation of a reservoir with a pontoon as the most effective, relative to other methods of organizing ventilation, and the results of a numerical experiment to determine the average theoretical air mobility using the V.M. Elterman formula were compared with experimental ones. Conclusion. The results of experiments on the mass loss of the studied liquids and air mobility inside the experimental tank show that the innovative method is more effective than other ventilation methods. However, the results of numerical experiments cast doubt on the advisability of using the Elterman formula for generalizing experimental data as applied to the ventilation of experimental tanks with small volumes. Keywords: reservoir with a pontoon, forced ventilation, air mobility, liquid mass loss