Fundamental analysis of scaling strategies for fuel leak prevention technology

Up to 70 per cent of home heating oil spills do not result from tank failure, but from line failure. As an environmental protection measure, LORAX Systems Inc. developed it's LineGuardian technology to automatically stop flow from a residential oil tank in the event of even a pin-hole leak. The ability to detect and respond to leaks of this scale has since garnered significant interest from both the oil and gas transport sector and insurance companies due to the potential for risk mitigation in environmentally sensitive areas and reduced financial impact of release events. Through a preliminary interaction via the NRC-IRAP voucher program at Dalhousie University, the need for a more rigorous analysis and understanding of shockwave propagation, fluid flow, dynamic leak response, and cycling reliability was identified for LORAX's current design. Specifically, the analysis of scaling effects on system dynamics from both a numerical and experimental perspective is of particular interest to better characterize their existing technology and identify emerging applications for which they offer a technological and competitive advantage. This work will focus on three significant questions posed at this time: 1) how would changing the fluids within the system in new applications affect the operational reliability of the current design; 2) How will significant scaling of the existing technology affect the response rates to shockwave propagations within the system; and 3) what is the most technical and economically feasible strategy to scale this approach. To answer these questions, this project will design and operate an experimental test platform for assessing the scalability of LORAX's existing technology, while performing fundamental and CFD-based analysis of shockwave propagation within their system to characterization of the effects of scaling on internal flow profiles within the context of application-specific configurations. The experimental and computational components will be complementary, and used to validated the physical principles behind this technology's operation.