Fatigue evaluation of the API specification 12F shop welded flat bottom tanks

- Stress analysis was performed following the ASME design-by-analysis.
- Storage tanks axisymmetric and solid finite element models were developed.
- Smooth bar design fatigue curve was obtained to perform the fatigue evaluation.
- Clean out juncture is critical for the fatigue life of API 12F tanks.
- Smaller diameters allow less pressure cycles than tanks with larger diameters.

Shop-built storage tanks are widely used in several industries all over the world. These equipment are fabricated with relatively small dimensions and capacities to facilitate their transportation to production fields. Particularly, API 12F shop-welded, flat bottom tanks are a group of standard equipment with specific sizes and capacities that are commonly used in the upstream, exploration, and production segments of oil and gas projects. The extensive utilization of this equipment has raised the need to investigate their behavior under different load cases and determine their service life due to cyclic loading.Throughout this investigation, a fatigue evaluation was performed following the guidelines of the ASME BPVC Section VIII, Division 2, design-by-analysis rules. The thirteen API 12F tanks were separated in three different groups according to their diameters. Also, different thicknesses as well as pressure cycles including internal pressure and vacuum were considered for the evaluation of each group.An elastic stress analysis using finite elements was conducted on shell models, axisymmetric models and solid submodels to determine the stress components and stress tensor range as well as obtain the effective alternating equivalent stress. Moreover, the fatigue penalty factor and a fatigue strength reduction factor were defined in accordance with the ASME code specifications. Hence, the protection against failure from cyclic loading of these equipment was determined using smooth bar design fatigue curves and the permissible number of operational cycles and location of the most critical joint were computed for each API 12F tank.