3321 EI Research report: Flow performance testing of vapour recovery systems on petroleum road tankers

Overview:

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The VOC (Vapour Recovery) Directive lays down technical requirements for the design of road tankers with respect to loading rates versus the flow capacity of their vapour manifold which returns the displaced vapour to a terminal’s vapour recovery unit.

Road tankers are required by the VOC directive to display a plate giving the maximum number of compartments that may be filled simultaneously without any vapour being expelled to atmosphere; however, no test procedure or protocol to determine that number is defined.

During 2015 the Energy Institute (EI) commissioned Emco Wheaton to carry out flow performance tests on the vapour recovery systems of a number of semi-trailer tanks of different design and manufacture, with a view to determining if there could be some simple guidelines prepared that would allow the number of arms permitted to load a tanker simultaneously to be determined from visual inspection and/or drawing analysis rather than by performing physical tests every time. This report is a summary of the results arising from the tests.

The testing was carried out following the procedures laid out in the EI publication – Testing of vapour containment on petroleum road tankers 2001 and Technical Report CEN/TR 15120:2013 annex B. The findings will feed into the EI guidance Petroleum road tanker design and construction.