Evaluation of volumetric leak detection methods used in underground storage tanks

Abstract

In the spring and summer of 1987, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) evaluated the performance of 25 commercially available volumetric test methods for the detection of small leaks in underground storage tanks containing gasoline. Performance was estimated by means of an experimentally validated performance simulation. The simulation used (1) experimentally validated models of the important sources of ambient noise that control the performance of these methods, (2) a large database of product-temperature changes that result from the delivery of product at a temperature different from that of the product in the tank, and (3) a mathematical model of each test method to estimate the performance of that method. A major objective of this program was to quantify experimentally the major sources of ambient noise. This paper describes the results of these experiments and presents performance estimates for generic testing methods, which are typical of the methods evaluated, to illustrate the effect of these sources of ambient noise on performance. The experiments were performed at the EPA Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory's Underground Storage Tank Test Apparatus in Edison, New Jersey.