Storage Tank Hatch Monitoring via Level Variation Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Storage tank hatches are often left open during filling, leading to material loss, environmental damage, and increased costs due to the need for physical sensors and extensive cabling, which is costly and inefficient.
Innovation Solution
An inventory management system that monitors the material level in tanks using existing level sensors to detect changes indicative of hatch opening, triggering an alarm and taking corrective action without the need for additional sensors on the hatch, thereby reducing material loss and environmental impact.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If physical sensors and cabling are installed on the hatch to detect open/close status, then detection reliability is improved, but device complexity and installation cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the detection function from the hatch itself and relocates it to the level sensor system. By monitoring material level changes in the tank rather than directly sensing the hatch position, the system eliminates the need for physical sensors and cabling on the hatch while maintaining detection capability
Solution Approach 2:
The level sensor, originally designed for a single function (measuring material level), is made multi-functional by also detecting hatch open/close status through analysis of level change patterns. This universal approach allows one component to serve multiple detection purposes without additional hardware
2Speed
If material level is continuously monitored to detect hatch opening, then detection speed is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of continuous monitoring, the system uses periodic sampling of material level data at predetermined intervals. This approach maintains detection speed by capturing critical level changes while significantly reducing energy consumption compared to continuous monitoring
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies partial monitoring by focusing detection efforts only on specific critical zones within the tank where level changes indicate hatch status. Rather than monitoring the entire tank continuously, it concentrates sampling on key areas, reducing overall energy usage while maintaining effective detection
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~3D
Figure 3E~3I
AI summary
A method includes receiving (704) information associated with a level of material in a tank (102a-102c), where the tank has a hatch (114). The method also includes determining (706) whether the level of material in the tank experiences a specified variation within a critical zone (202) associated with the hatch. The specified variation is indicative of the hatch being open while the tank is being filled. In addition, the method includes generating (716) an alarm when the level of material in the tank experiences the specified variation. Determining whether the level of material in the tank experiences the specified variation could be based on an entrance level speed of the material, which identifies a rate at which the level of material in the tank is increasing when the material level crosses a lower bound of the critical zone. Also, no alarms could be generated when the level of material in the tank is outside the critical zone.