Petrol Storage in Welded Tanks.
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Some Notes on a Visit to the Uxbridge Works of the Steel Barrel Co., Ltd.
Anyone who has, in the early days of commercial motoring, had to sustain the inconvenience arising from the handling of large quantities of petrol solely by means of the familiar two-gallon Nine will not need to be reminded of the tremendous advantages accruing from the installation of bulk-storage equipment. Surprised to hear that at one of the largest London motorcab garages the petrol is still distributed by means of small cams, It representative of this journal recently sought a solution from the officials of the Steel Barrel Co., Ltd., of Uxbridge. Although they were unable definitely to z1-count for the continued conservatism of this particular owner, they were both able and willing to furnish the with ample evidence of the satisfaction that has followed the fitting of petrol-storage plants in the yards of other large motor-vehicle owners.
It is not specifieally as makers of petrol-storage plant that the farreachiug business interests of the Steel 1 Iarie4 Co., Ltd., linve been accumulated, but, as the company's title implies, as specialists in the manufacture of steel barrels of all kinds. Progress has been steady since the establishment of the business in 1897 in the old premises in Uxbridge ; the new works were occupied in 1905, and the company is now csqinble of making a regular output of 1,000 complete barrels a week, quite apart from the work of the extensive department which deals with all classes of special-contract work, which includes petrolstorage equipment of all kinds. .
As an indication of the special knowledge which has been easefully acquired by this maker and of the manner in which the Steel Barrel Co. is therefore able to tackle the installation of storage plant, we want no
better demonstration than that which can be afforded to any visitor who is fortunate enough to he conducted through t he works by, Mr. T. T. Heaton, the manager. The greater part of these works is, (if course. OCCU
pied with the production of steel barrels, and we may usefully devote a little space to a description of the processes through wide!) these specialities puss. Mr. Heaton is unable to tell his visitors what was the actual origin of the camber to which the staves of an ordinary barrel are formed, but he is inclined to think that it is merely a case of the survival of the fittest, and he will take pleasure in demonstrating that a 40-gallon cask, is quite the handiest of shapes for ease of handling, that it can be rolled to either side or straight ahead with the minimum of trouble, and that it ean be tipped on end with equal facility. Suffice it to say that the standard camber of a 40-gallon wooden cask has evidently been evolved from the point of view of transport and not as the result of acute mathematical deductions with regard to the strength of barrel-shaped shells. Taking up this point of view, it is therefore not surprising to hear that the Steel Barrel Co. has adopted, as the standard camber for its barrels of all sizes, that curve which has been perpetuated in the 40-gallon wooden cask as used by brewers and others. The rolls and shears are made to this camber.
Good quality Bessemer steel is alone employed for both the ends and the bodies of the barrels. Suitable lengths of plate are passed through the rolls, and the two ends of each strip are then sheared to a clean edge so that when butted they will just take the ends comfortably. The circular heads are flanged in a. powerful hydraulic press. The body strip, after it is rolled into the proper shape, is mounted on an insulated anvil and the butted edges are electrically welded by a current of low voltage, which arcs to the barrel from a carbon held by the operator. The fused metal is then well hammered, and the joint is complete. The flanged ends are lastly welded into position after the bung or other fitting has been similarly fixed. There is not a rivet in the whole venstruction, and when the barrel nr tank, or whatever other shape the reservoir may assume, has been tested under pressure, and when everything has been passed as being as tight as a drum, it may be assumed that nothing short of actual fracture
will permit leakage. There are no joints, in the true sense of the word, to cause anxiety; maintenance is reduced to the lowest possible charge; this form of construction ensures practical indestructibility; and there is no question as to the cleanliness of a metal barrel such as there is in the ease of its wooden prototype. These characteristics of the welded steel barrel are, too, generally speaking, outstanding advantages of the same form of construction, when it is employed in connection with petrol-storage equipments.
The Steel Barrel Co. has up to the present time had its hands so full with the constantly-increasing demand for receptacles for ail and chemicals of all sorts, that it has, as yet, hardly invaded the sphere of the brewer's cooper. But that is to conic, for Mr. Heaton has personally assured himself, by practical experiment, that beer actually keeps better in a steel barrel than it does in a wooden one_ Much-more-rapid progress has been made in the production of both large aml small petrol-storage equipments, and already the company has a num_ber or the largest users of commercialmotor vehicles on iLs books. We have been particularly interested to inspect the general arrangement of drawings of an 8.000-gallon distributing and storage plant that has been put down at the Aeton Vale works of W. and G. du Cros. Ltd., and of another verylarge installation for the GatnageBed Miner Cab Co.
The storage equipments, which the I'shridge works is in a position to install, range from a handy 00-gallon -selt-contained portable storage-andmeasiseing set to series of 1,300-gallon tanks, and their accessory supply and distributing piping and reservoirs. We reproduce on page 898 a photograph_ if the latest arrangement of a 20-gailen measuring set, as installed over a large underground storage tank. The arrangement of all these Mandan] sets is much the same, and is quite comprehensible from an examination of the illustration to which we have referred. A semi-rotary hand pump of the Willcox pattern is plaeed over a suction pipe which is fitted with a foot-valve and a strainer -that are situated at or near the bottom of the reservoir. Petrol is pumped up into the measuring tank, until it runs back through the overflow pipe into the main tank again, Time measuring tank is calibrated, and its contents are indicated by a suitably-marked gauge outside. Ventilator pipes, furnished with protective gauzes to prevent the risk of a firebrick, are provided, -one for the measuring tank and the other for the main reservoir. A by-pass is fitted between -the overflow pipe and the suction pipe,
to errs toe the measuring tank to be emptied at will. A suitable flexible hose completes the outfit.
All the Steel Barrel Co.'s sets conform to the arrangement which we have outlined above, bet, of course, in the ease of sets of several-thousandgallons capacity, the distributing piping is invariably modified to suit the special requirements of the. user; power-driven rotary pumps are also embodied in such plants. The company is no advocate of that class of measuring plant which includes a pump-fed gravity tank placed above the measuring tanks, It is interesting to note that the elaborate system installed for the " W. and G." cabs at Acton includes no measuring devices ; the petrol is gauged after delivery to each cab. In all its schemes for large installations, a recommendation is invariably made that the biggest tanks shall not be of unduly-large capacity, and the size is limited by convenience of galvanizing, although, apart from this consideration, there is no practical limit to the size of the welded constructions which this conipany is prepared to under take. In addition to its extensive electric-welding plant, the company undertakes oxy-acetylene welding.
Certain licensing authorities insist that all large petrol tanks shall be embedded in ennerete underground, and this, of course, necessitates the rise of welded tanks, as it would not be safe to be unable to inspect riveted joints as occasion required. Wherever practicable, all the pipe joints are welded and not screwed nor bolted.
Our readers are, of course, primarily interested in the Steel Barrel Co.'s capacity for installing petrolstorage and measuring plants, but this maker's re-cord of a remarkable series of special welded constructions, ninny of them of great size, ranging from oil boilers and varnish clarifiers to chimneys 60 ft. high, is certain to imbue with confidence those who are on the look-out for a factory that is capable of undertaking welded work of every conceivable kind.