Granite Manages Multiple Tanks
New system ensures safe, economical, provable practices at the tank farm BY SANDY LENDER
The plant operator or a remote user can know the material level of the AC tanks, hot-mix silos, and dust or lime silo capacity, as this team in New York has learned. Photo courtesy of Stansteel
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Editor’s Note: It’s worth noting that liquid asphalt cement (AC) “spills” cool quickly in ambient temperatures and solidify, rather than flow. The type of overflow referenced in this article is relegated to the containment areas that asphalt producers are required to build around tank farms, creating mounds of solid material on concrete platforms within concrete barriers. No liquid is entering the environment at large.
30 // may 2020
To prevent overflow situations and accidental contamination of one liquid asphalt cement (AC) binder with another, management at Granite Construction Company Inc., Sacramento, is in the process of installing the Tank Manager™ System from Stansteel of Louisville, Kentucky, at six of its asphalt mix sites. Plant Equipment Manager Chris Herne discussed the problems and solutions of tank management,
including removing human error for safety and efficiency purposes. “If you spill a ton of AC onto the ground from your secondary containment while it’s hot, it goes under everything,” Herne explained. “It’ll cost between two and five thousand dollars a ton to clean that up. We had some plants that had continuous problems with spilled asphalt, whether that was from overfilling a tank that would ooze out
