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steel compression tanks collapsing?

steamfitter
steamfitter Member Posts: 156
in THE MAIN WALL
Curious!

I read about this happening, but I'm curious if anyone has a real life story about a steel compression tank collapsing and possibly any pictures.

Thanks!

Comments

  • Mark Eatherton
    Mark Eatherton Member Posts: 5,863
    edited July 2013
    Not in 35 years...

    If one were to allow STEAM to get into the tank (increase in volume by 1500 times), and the steam was allowed to collapse, it COULD cause a tank to flatten out or collapse, but it would take a WHOLE lot of conditions (check valve where it shouldn't be) in order to get it to go.



    I saw a demonstration at a community college in Canada where they take a 55 gallon drum and fill it with steam (atmospheric pressure), and then close it off and let the steam collapse (decrease in volume by 1500 times) and watch it crumple like an aluminum beer can.



    But in all of my tours, I've never seen ANY expansion/compression tanks (bladder, non bladder, diaphragmatic etc) collapse.



    Another internet myth? ;-)



    ME

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  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 24,152
    Actually

    I think Mark put a bear hug on the drum to impress the young Wilo engineer in the pic.
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • bill_105
    bill_105 Member Posts: 429
    That would be trip..

    you know, to watch a 55 gallon drum implode.

    BTW in Dan's Pumping Away book, on page 21, he mentions, and has a diagram of a tank collapsing. Hmm
  • Mark Eatherton
    Mark Eatherton Member Posts: 5,863
    That was it...

    N.A.I.T. Coolest trade school you will ever see. Thanks for the memory Bob.



    ME

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,610
    I was on a job in a Long Island apartment building.

    We're standing in the boiler room and the contractor is draining the whole system in this building that was about seven stories tall. He's doing it as quickly as he can.



    Unfortunately, he forgot to open a vent line to the five steel expansion tanks that hung from the ceiling. As the water fell out of the building, it also dropped inside the the tanks, causing the air inside the tank to expand. We realized all of this afterward.



    It doesn't take much atmospheric pressure to crush a tank from the outside. Circles are meant to take pressure from the inside, not the outside. I will never forget the sound those five tanks made as they simultaneously collapsed and I'm laughing now as I recall how quickly it all happened.



    I carried one of those tanks with me to my seminars for a couple of years. Then I got too old to be carrying around big tanks. ;-)
    Retired and loving it.
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