Help Seismic Restraints for Fermentation Tanks

[sopbeer]

The city inspector is asking about restraining the fermentation tanks in the event of seismic activity. Does anyone have any information or any studies done that I can give to the city to satisfy the requirement on what it would take to tip a tank? I asked the manufacture however they haven't ever been asked for the information and not aware of anyone else. Has anyone had to do anything in this regard? What was done, bolt the feet to the floor? It doesn't seem to be wide spread practice to secure the tanks as near as I can tell with other brewers in the in state I have talked with.

Thoughts?

[nohandslance]

Email me; ljergensen@rebelmalting.com, and I will send you drawings and pictures of local code approved tanks and supports that were compliant with our inspector.

Good luck

Lance

[Airidini]

While I am not aware of your local code, it does sound a bit tidious in regards to the inspectors request. None-the-less, do your vessels not come with a bolt hole in the foot pad for placing floor restraining bolts? Furthermore, what kind of tanks do you have? Are they horizontal? Vertical? How many BBL's? If they are vertical (conical I pressume) the how many feet do they have, i.e. 3 triangular pattern or 4 square pattern? If they are conical the greatest weight mass is located in the center of the vessel anyways thus making the tank a very stable object. Also, the weight alone of a completely filled vessel makes the object stable and would take considerable angle i.e. floor collaspe or inadvertant lift from the forks of a tow motor, before the unit would topple to it's side. An additional thought to consider is the fact that as the vessel empties then the low gravitational force makes the object even more stable in relation to its center of gravity. Is it possible this inspector is delaying you for some reason? I am not sure if any manufacture conducts such a stress test on their vessels in regards to this matter. I wasn't aware of Utah being such a earthquake ridden area of the USA....

[Moonlight]

In working with Quality Stainless Tanks in Windsor, CA, they have assured me that in our earthquake-prone area, the tanks that are bolted to the floor tend to sustain structural damage, whereas the ones that are not, just dance around a bit and are not damaged. Taller, thinner tanks have more tipping risk and so are more likely to need to be bolted down.
Perhaps you can email them and get something that your inspector will understand and accept.
Scott would be the best contact person, and (sad to say) their email is winetanks@aol.com.

[sopbeer]

These are 3 legs about 7 feet tall 4 feet in diameter. The feet don't have bolt holes just round flat pads that screw into the tanks and can be adjusted to level them. The tanks came from a manufacture in China. I can safely say that the other brewery in town and the distillery don't have their tanks bolted down or restrained. I talked to the brew master yesterday and went over to the distillery and inspected theirs through the viewing window. The inspectors are board with no building going on so they have to make stuff up to justify their jobs by making stuff up. Thank you for the help.