Gareth Urukalo from ICR shares the highlights from his talk on engineered composite repairs to tanks at NISTM Woodlands.
On 5-7 December, the tank storage industry joined in The Woodlands, Texas, USA, for the 16th annual national aboveground storage tank conference and trade show, run by NISTM. Tank Storage Magazine is proud to be a media partner, and our team attended earlier this month.
The conference is always full of industry experts ready to share best practices and updates in the tank storage industry.
Engineered composite repairs to tanks
Gareth Urukalo is the engineering technical authority for the composite repair sector at ICR. Within the composite division, ICR engineers composite repairs to corroded or damaged steel components, such as pipes, beams decks, pressure vessels and storage tanks, primarily within the oil and gas industry.
At NISTM, Urukalo discussed the differing design methodologies used for repairing different areas of tanks as each area of the tank has different loadings, uses and stresses. So, each segment of a tank needs to be considered based on its use.
For example, on the shell, engineers would need to consider hoop and axial stresses alongside leak containment in the event of a through-wall defect. This is less important when looking at the tank roof, though, for example.
Instead, the tank roof may see foot traffic, so the design requires a uniformly-distributed load. So, a roof is treated in a similar way to a deck plate, whilst also potentially considering internal pressure.
See below for some images of repairs, featured in Urukalo’s presentation.
Save the date for the 17th Annual National Aboveground Storage Tank Conference & Trade Show, on December 10-12 2024.
