Replacement of an Ammonia Storage Tank

John S. Shipman and Ray Davies

ICI Chemicals and Polymers Ltd., Wilton, Middlesbrough,Cleveland TS90 8JA, England
In June 1994, a proposed minor modification to a n ammonia storage tank led to a review o f its overall design and construction. This review ultimately led to the tank being removed from service and a, replacement tank being constructed. This article describes: the design and construction of the tank; concerns that had developed in 1975, after a period of 20 years operation, consequential actions and the subsequent discovery of cracking; the 1995 fitnessfor-service review; the optionsfor replacement and differences between published recommendations; design issues and consequencesfor the choice of construction f the material; and the installation and commissioning o tank.
be 5 ASV which supplied the system with anhydrous liquid ammonia via a pair of pumps, 3 ASV being used as backup should 5 ASV be unavailable due to inspection requirements or unforeseen circumstances. There was a requirement for 3 ASV to be brought into service rapidly and at short notice, when up to 300 te/h could be pumped in. In addition to the duty described above, both vessels could be used as buffer storage for the site should the site export facility fail.

MINOR MODIFICATION

OPERATIONAL DETAILS

The No. 3 Ammonia Storage Vessel (3 ASV) at ICI Billingham, England, provided a capacity of 183 te and together with the No. 5 Ammonia Storage Vessel (5 ASV), a 600 te capacity sphere, was used to provide buffer storage for the site ammonia main pressure control system (Figure 1).The storage conditions were 200 mbar at - 29C and the design temperature was set at -33C corresponding to complete depressurization. In normal operation, it would

In June 1994, a project was initiated to install remote actuated isolation valves in the inlets and outlets o f all ammonia users on the Billingham Site. This was to enable all ammonia inventories to be isolated and partitioned in the event of a major incident. The project required a pipework modification to enable the new isolation valve to be installed. However, due to the age of the installation, the existing pipework was fitted with Sternes flanges. These flanges are screwed onto the pipe and use a solid aluminum ring as the gasket; this is deformed when the joint is made. Site policy was to replace these flanges wherever possible and as the 3 ASV outlet was fitted with one of these,

FIGURE 1

Sphere (SASV) together with the replacement stainless steel tank (6ASV).
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the decision was taken to substitute it. This constituted a registered vessel modification under ICI internal procedures requiring formal design verification by a nominated, specialist engineer. In preparing the design package for verification, it became apparent that there were a number of unsatisfactory design and construction features concerned with the tank as a whole and doubts began to arise regarding its suitability for the required service.
DESCRIPTION

With some exceptions, the original tank was a typical example of the vertical, conical roof, atmospheric tanks used for the storage of a wide range of liquids in the petrochemical industry (Figure 2). Installed in 1957, no record could be found that the tank had been designed, constructed, and tested in accordance with any national code, whereas a modern tank for this duty would be expected to comply with BS 7777 in the United Kingdom or API 620 in the United States. (1) BS7777. Flat-bottomed, vertical, cylindrical storage tanks for low temperature service (2) MI 620. Design and construction of large, welded, low-pressure storage tanks. The tank was 20 ft diameter by 30 ft high with a roof slope of 1 in 5 and had been constructed from a now o b s e lete structural quality mild steel in accordance with BS 14. (3) BS14. Structural steel for the pressure parts of marine boilers. This British Standard did not specify any impact test requirements. The tank was provided with 36 holding-down bolts to prevent the occurrance of uplift due to the prevailing pressure conditions. This phenomenon occurs when the force on the underside of the roof, due to vapor pressure, exceeds the weight acting down through the shell causing the shell to pull upward on the floor. This upward pull causes severe local deformation of the floor and rapidly leads to tearing of the shell-to-floor weld and release of the tank contents (Figure 3). A notable and undesirable feature of the tank was the use of fillet welds for the circumferential seams between the shell strakes (Figure 4). This has been prohibited within ICI for many years and is not an approved method in modem British tank codes; all seam welds must be made by butt welding.
5

FIGURE 3

Upward pull causes severe local deformation of floor and leads to tearing of shell-to-floor weld and release of tank contents.

Figure 4 shows a square edge butt weld as would be found on a typical 5 mm thick strake. Thicker strakes would have single or double-sided vee preparations. A further notable feature was the absence of thermal insulation. This had deteriorated to a level necessitating removal in 1976 and had not been replaced.
HISTORICAL CONCERNS

In 1976, the Production Area Engineer with responsibilities for the tank raised concerns as to its suitability for the storage of refrigerated liquid ammonia. There were three specific issues: (1) The materials of construction did not meet then current requirements for service at - 33C. (2) The lap welded construction, as detailed above. (3) The generation of large thermal stresses in the shell, due to the temperature gradients which would arise on filling the ambient tank with cold ammonia-made worse by having no thermal insulation. These issues were dealt with to the satisfaction of the raiser essentially by invoking the principle known as grandfathering, i.e., If its been alright for nearly 20 years it will continue to be alright.A concession was made to the thermal gradient issue by specifying that a cold heel of am-

a Fillet
Butt-Weld

/
Shell Strakes

Liquid

Hold down Bdts

r
F IG URE 2
Diagram of tank. 166 Fall, 1997

/
Original Tank
Modem Requirement

FIGURE 4

Circumferential seam welding in tank shell. Process Safety Progress (V01.16, No.3)

monia should always be kept in the tank to produce a continuous chilling effect. This heel had a depth of 300 mm, accounting for about 20 te of ammonia. The tank was placed on an inspection interval of 6 years and continued in service. Magnetic particle inspection of the inside of the tank in 1982 and 1988 revealed an amount of cracking in welds and parent plate. These were deemed acceptable by ICI materials engineers, although it does not appear that any view was reported as to their cause. In 1994, triggered by the need for the minor modification to be design verified, and the evidence of design and construction deficiencies and cracking in No. 3 ASV, the Maintenance Manager responsible for the equipment called for a formal fitness-for-service review under ICI procedures.
FITNESS-FOR-SERVICE REVIEW

This was carried out by a team comprising a specialist vessels engineer, a specialist materials engineer, a stress analyst, an equipment inspector, and the responsible maintenance manager. Two key issues emerged from the review, these being:
(1) The heel of ammonia was not doing what had been hoped for, and the tank shell warmed up to ambient about 300 mm above the surface. (2) Using toughness data equivalent to the fully brittle condition (because nothing else was available), the critical defect sizes determined were so small that they could not all be guaranteed to be found. It was concluded that the team could not provide evidence adequate to satisfy ICIs internal pressure vessel design verification policy and that the tank would have to be replaced.
REPLACEMENT OPTIONS

An additional factor was the recognition that due to the continuous purge from 3 ASV and 5 ASV, neither vessel had suffered significant stress corrosion cracking problems. It was decided, therefore, to replace this tank with one essentially of the same type, but with deficiencies in the design, material specification, and welding rectified; i.e., full compliance with modem national standards with butt welded seams, impact tested material, and appropriate quality control. This proposal immediately ran into opposition from the responsible engineer representing ICIs Safety and Loss Prevention Dept. over the issue of single containment. It is quite clear that the relevant national tank standard, BS 7777 (Reference should be made to annex A of BS 7777), permits single containment of ammonia - provided certain more severe materials requirements are met. This is also the published view of the U.K.s Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association (EEMUA), which is an organization of substantial purchasers including ICI, British Petroleum, Shell, and Exxon. However, the published recommendation o f the Chemical Industries Association was the use of double containment for large ammonia storage vessels and ICI is a leading member of that body. Examples of double containment are shown in Figure 5 , and it can be seen that the expense and degree of sophistication is significantly greater. The desire to improve the safety of the emergency ammonia storage now threatened to turn into an expensive overkill. After examination of the relevant standards and discussion about whether 200 te capacity constituted a large ammonia storage tank, the decision was made to replace it with single containment and go along the route of enhanced material properties (see the following section).
REQUIREMENTS F O R MATERIALS

BS 7777 groups materials into 6 types and relates the choice to single or double containment and product stor-

Two main replacement options were considered, these being:

(I) Replace the complete installation with a pressurized storage (1.38 barg) facility in a different location on the site. (2) Replace 3 ASV with a similar tank, but designed and constructed to modem standards. The reasons for considering the first option were twofold:

(a) The existing installation is located at the edge of the site close to a public road. Moving the installation to a more central position in the site may have reduced the risk of an ammonia incident affecting the general public. (b) The existing system operates at 200 mbar and therefore generates flash gas at 200 mbar. This is used at this pressure by one consuming plant on the site and if this is not available, the gas must be boosted in pressure for use by others. The higher pressure storage would, therefore, offer greater operational flexibility. On detailed examination, it was concluded that the advantage gained by moving towards the center of the site was offset by the fact that a leak from 1.38 bar g storage would be more severe, due to the generation of a greater quantity of flash gas. Furthermore, the advantages of greater operational flexibility were considered to be of little importance.
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FIGURE 5

Examples of double containment tanks. Fall, 1997 167

TABLE 1. MaterialTypes for Tank Shell and Bottom

Typical Double Product Single or Full Storage Containment Containment Temperature Type 1 - 10C Type I1 Type 1 - 35C Type I1 Type I1 - 50C Type I11 Type IV Type IV*

Product Butane Ammonia Propane/ propylene TypeIV Ethane/ ethylene LNG Type V or V I

- 105C - 165C

275

/ 1- 4
I

delta1

Test Temperature T

*For thicknesses greater than 30 m and less than or equal t o 40 m,Type V or VI is necessary.

FIGURE 6

Determination of delta T

age temperature (Table 1).These types are related to material generic types and specific impact test requirements (Table 2). As can be seen, the use of single containment requires enhanced material requirements to ensure adequate safety of storage. The introduction of the delta T term is intended to make an allowance for the reduction in toughness in the heat affected zone of a weld. The steelmaker is required to obtain impact energy transition curves for the parent plate and for the HA2 of a test weld in order to determine delta T (see Figure 6). This procedure for arriving at the 27J temperature is intended to ensure that 275 is achieved in the HA2 of the site-made weld at 25C / - 5C lower than the design minimum temperature. The 120J requirement is to give reasonable assurance that the Cv transition temperature is at least 30C above the impact test temperature. It was realized within ICI that the enhanced material requirements would be a problem, because the plate tonnage quantity was too small to form a reasonable mill order. Quantities such as this normally come from specialist stock holders. Quotations for the tank in carbon-manganese steel proved this to be the case and no tank vendor quoted enhanced grade material. In fact, the vendor most involved in

the drafting of BS 7777 stated that the enhanced Type I1 material was unnecessary because the tank was not large and quoted Type I as did the others. ICI decided that the use of Type I did not meet its safety requirements.

FIGURE 7

New stainless steel tank in position.

T A B L E 2. longitudinalCharpy V-Notch Impact Testing

Classification Type 1 1 Type 1 Type 111 Type IV Type v Type VI Steel Type Normalized carbon-manganese Improved Toughness C-Mn Low nickel steel 9% nickel steel Improved 9% nickel steel Austenitic stainless steel Tested Per Plate (0,(2) 275 at -50C 27J at - 50C-deltaT 275 at - 80C-deltaT 35J at - 196C lOOJ at - 196 C No impact testing 120J Tested Per 40te Batch (3)
Not required
- 20C - 50C

Not required Not required Not required

Notes: (1) Energy value (Column 3) is the minimum O f three specimens with only one single value less than the value specified and with n o single value less than 75% of the value specified. (2) For material thickness less than 11 mm, 10 mm x 5 mm subsize specimens are to he used, and demonstrate 70% of the values specified in this table. For Type V steel, the value is to he 50% of the value soecified in chis table. (3) Impact testing IS carried out on each plate to demonstrate the required impact value. In addition, testlng at a frequency of one test per 40 te batch is to be carried out to demonstrate the l20J requirement (see annex A). The definitions of plate and hatch are given in BS EN 10025. (4) Reference should be made to annex A of BS 7777.

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FIGURE 8

New tank being lifted into position. in order to minimize disruption to the availability of 3 ASV, especially severe because of access problems, it was decided to build the new tank on open ground to the side of the storage facility, Upon completion of the new tank and removal of the old, the new tank was lifted into position (Figures 7 and 8).
OTHER FEATURES

A BETTER SOLUTION

It was decided that apart from an increase in the initial capita1 Of the tank-a percentage in the context of the whole replacement project-the route which offered the best all-round solution was the use of austenitic stainless steel. The comparison of tank costs was $110,000 for the carbon-manganese against $208,000 for the stainless steel tank. However, the lower cost was for Type I material and would have increased significantly for Type 11: the delivery time would also have been quite unacceptable. Austenitic steel is obviously a much safer material because of its immunity to brittle fracture at the storage temperature of liquid ammonia-even under impacting missile conditions. In addition, the following advantages are obtained: (1) The tank does not require the application or maintenance of a paint system. ( 2 ) The tank is not vulnerable to the corrosion which could be expected with carbon-manganese steel under the freeze/thaw conditions of intermittent storage. This is particularly important with regard to underfloor corrosion which cannot be seen directly. (3) The tank is not prone to anhydrous ammonia stress corrosion cracking. ( 4 ) After the initial inspection, it is not necessary to carry out an invasive inspection again. This elimination of the tank preparation and entry work is a significant cost saver for the future.
INSTALLATION

The new installation is monitored by CCTV from the local control room. The new installation is protected by remote actuated isolation valves, which enable the tank to be partitioned should an incident occur. These can either be actuated locally or from the main site operations center.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

(1) The discipline of putting a minor modification through a formal design verification system helped to identify that an existing ammonia storage vessel was unfit for further service. (2) The option taken and the design and specification selected for the replacement was influenced by a risk assessment on the probability of a major vessel failure, together with an assessment of the consequences of such a failure.

It is conventional to erect a site-built storage tank on the base where it is to remain for its operating life. However,

This paper ( 3 3 was pwsented at the AIChE Ammonia Plants & R e lated Facilities Symposium held in Boston, Massachusetts on Tuesday, September 10, 19%.

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