Loading road oil into tank trucks was taking too long.  The average time required was 2 hours and 14 minutes. This high viscosity oil does not flow easily and is difficult to pump. Cool weather increased the time and made the task doubly difficult because the lower temperature of the oil increased it's viscosity.

The Solution

The customer needed to find a way to heat the 20,000 gallon storage tank. Chromalox specified 11 model TMO flange immersion tank heaters to be installed.

The tank was covered with 2 inches of cork to reduce the heat loss. The heaters were then installed, five to each side of the horizontal tank and one heater was installed at end where the pump is connected to further reduce the viscosity for easier pumping. The heaters were connected on two circuits, with heaters and one of seven heaters. Each heater is rated 4.5 KW and connected three phase. Control is with a Chromalox AR thermostat connected through a magnetic contactors. As a precaution against over heating, Chromalox type ARC thermal cutout switches were installed. It now takes only 14 minutes to load a tank truck which represents a great saving in time.

Benefits

+ Reduced loading time for each tank truck.
+ Installation is simple.
+ Oil temperature is automatically controlled by thermostat.
+ Electric heaters were far less expensive to install than any other type of heating system.
+ Low maintenance.
+ Oil can be brought up to working temperature after shut down by automatic controls.