Case Study

ALV – Assisted Tank Filling.

ALV invited Benefil to assist on filling this exceptionally large Mazout tank in Sint-Lambrechts Woluwe. The tank needed to be fully decommissioned as a safety precaution.

What's the job?

Situated underneath a small disused building the team needed to decommission a 35/40m tank.

Because of the size of the tank it wasn’t possible to remove it, therefore ALV requested some assistance from Benefil with filling the tank.

Who are ALV?

ALV specialise in all tank related jobs within the petrochemical industry. You can read more about them in our latest ‘Meet the Partners’ article below!

ALV - Meet the Partners

Innovative Techniques

Problems occasionally give us a chance to seek new and innovative solutions.

Magnets!

Due to the size of the tank it was a struggle to place the pipes so that the foam would spread evenly throughout.

The solution was to use magnets so that we could suspend the pipe along the top interior of the tank. This significantly improved our efficiency and instead we were able to fill the tank with greater ease.

Filling the tank

Before we fill a tank it must be emptied and cleaned. Fortunately ALV had already cleaned the tank.

It is very important that all possible space within the tanks is filled with hardfoam. As a result the team strategically used the magnets to place the PE pipes and began filling the tanks with foam.

However because of how the pipes had been positioned it would be difficult to remove them later and also ensure the tank had been properly filled with foam. Instead they decided to cut the PE pipes and seal them within the tank.