×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

How to choose thed right API 650 edition

How to choose thed right API 650 edition

How to choose thed right API 650 edition

(OP)
Hello,

i am designing a storage tank according to API 650 standard, i have access to 2007 , 2009 and 2013 edition of API650.

Questin: which one shoold i choose? and for futur reference, how do i usually make my choice?

thank you .

RE: How to choose thed right API 650 edition

I've never designed a storage tank and am not familiar with API 650. But, why would you use anything but the most recent edition if you have access to it?

RE: How to choose thed right API 650 edition

The only valid code is the latest one. All others automatically become superceded and invalid.

As you will need some sort of sign off / QA check / approval, if you haven't used the latest code, you might not get that sign off.

The only way you can use old codes is when the client demands it or you do repairs or changes to an existing tank designed to that particular code.

My motto: Learn something new every day

Also: There's usually a good reason why everyone does it that way

RE: How to choose thed right API 650 edition

(OP)
thank you for responding shortly after posting this thread. that was very helpful.

RE: How to choose thed right API 650 edition

I would like to point out that API 650 is a standard, not a code. It will not acquire code status unless and until the agency with jurisdiction specifically adopts it as a code. That being said, you would need to have a VERY good reason not to use the most recent edition (I have done this once in 34 years of practice).

If API 650 has not been adopted as code, you may need to educate the local agency about it. Years ago I did quite a bit of civil work for a petroleum tank farm in central California. One day, my southern California-based client asked me to handle the permitting grunt work for a steel tank they wanted to add to the site, basically become their interface with the City of #$%^&, which had recently annexed the site. The tank design was done by a southern California structural engineer per API 650. Several weeks after I turned in the plans, calcs, geotech report, etc, I received a call from the structural engineer at the city who had reviewed the project. He told me that there were serious problems with the design and that it didn't meet the building code in a number of areas. I set up a meeting with him for the next week, then called my client and asked him to rush me a copy of API 650 (this was pre-World Wide Web and, although I had had a lot of experience with AWWA D-100, I had never seen API 650). My client rushed a copy of API 650 to me, which I was able to read completely prior to the meeting. At the meeting, the city's reviewer started with the building code deficiencies. I then explained to him that the structure in question was not a building, but a tank, and that while certain building code provisions would apply, it must be reviewed as a tank against the industry standard API 650 from which it was designed. It took him a while to understand this point because in his entire career, all he had ever reviewed was residential and commercial buildings (and he was not green engineering, either…he had a masters degree and 20 years in structural engineering, both design and review). I walked him through the design, using API 650 and the calculations as a guide. At the end, he agreed that API 650 was the right standard, but that put him in a quandary because the City of #$%^& had no legal means to use it as part of their code and it would take many months to work it through their system and get it approved by the City Council. I asked him to call his boss into the meeting, we explained the situation, and then I asked his boss if there was some way, any way, to adopt API 650 as department policy for this project (and for my client's site as a whole) since we couldn't wait for formal adoption. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, "It will be our little secret." Then he got serious and told us that he would initiate the process to get API 650 adopted by the city, since he knew my client had expansion plans and this would come up again. This was actually one of my better experiences with the City of #$%^&.

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

RE: How to choose thed right API 650 edition

(OP)
quit an amazing story Mr fel, i shoold take this under consideration throught out my career

thank you for your replys

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources