API Committee Meeting

There was a lot of discussion going on at the API Committee Meetings held the end of April. Some of it had to do with floating roofs and some with the wind loadings especially on uplift on the roof. Neither has been resolved and both are on going discussions. They are working on doing some testing for the wind uplift situation to try to resolve the conflicts.

With regard to API-650, the following agenda items were approved for publication.
1) Added shell nozzles in pipe sizes 50", 52", 54", and 60".
2) Added long welding neck flanges and lap joint flanges as acceptable flanges.
3) Revised some dimensions of flush cleanouts.
4) Revised the anchored and unanchored tank calculations in 5.11.2 and 5.11.3 to include a pressure combination factor applied to the internal pressure portion. Also added this factor and revised appropriate equations in Appendix R.
5) Deleted the joint efficiency requirements in the equations in Appendix V.
6) Changed the required dome roof depth in Appendix J to be a "Minimum" depth instead of a "Maximum" depth.
7) Revised Appendix J material reference to read that the material requirements of Appendix A apply as long as the material is 1/2" or less in thickness instead of requiring the material to meet Section 4 requirements.
8) Revised Appendix J to allow thicknesses greater than 1/2" as long as the material requirements of Section 4 are met.

It was also brought up that in some cases the formulas in Appendix P.3 for the curves did not calculate out to the same as values plotted on the curves. After a lot of discussion it was decided to temporarily remove P.3 from the standard until the discrepency can be corrected either in modification of the curves or modification of the formulas.

With regard to upcoming addendums, we were informed that the next addendum for API-650 will be issued sometime this fall and will include all items approved for publication prior to the April meeting. The items approved at the April meeting as well as the next two meetings will be published in the addendum that will be issued in the fall of 2010.

We still have many items being worked on for the next meeting. If you have some items you feel need to be addressed by the committee you can address them to API or let me know and I will see if I can get them addressed at the next meeting.