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In our refinery we are going to change our crude reception line by 36" diameter pipe. The previous line is of 16". The flow rate will be three times higher than the present condition. Our tank has 69 m diameter and 12.5 m height. My question is: will it cause problem in the floating roof tank during reception? Is any modification required? Is there a standard procedure?
 
Answers
26/06/2011 A: Sudhakara Babu Marpudi, Dangote Oil Refinery Company, m_sudhakarababu@yahoo.com
Floating roof tanks are designed with certain roof travel velocities. As long as the roof travel velocities are inside the design max / maximum allowed speed margins, enlarging an inlet pipe should not be an issue. Higer speeds of roof travel can lead to roof toppling which puts the tank out of service for a very long time.
10/01/2010 A: G KAMALAKANNAN, Foster Wheeler India Ltd, siddhukamal@yahoo.co.in
If the crude reception line is connecting to the bottom or if it is having the dip pipe, then there is no problem envisaged. If this is a free fall from top, it will generate static electricity. Otherwise, comparing to the tank dia, the pipe dia increase does not seem to be a problem.
I would request you to check with Mechanical Engrs who are handling the Static vessels for checking any code / vendor requirements with respect to design / fabrication problems.