Quote:
Originally Posted by MeanMike
You apologized, so I'm not going to get into any heated debate here. But I want to discuss this so no-one tries anything dangerous here. I'll assume you are talking about head pressure. 12" of fuel is about as deep as you'll get in any fuel tank in a car. 12" is about .5psi of head pressure at the bottom of the fuel tank and it gets lower as you go up. Pressure testing to .5 psi is fine, but that's not really considered a pressure vessel.
Factory tanks are resistance welded around the edge sometimes with some seam sealer in there to help seal it. It's not the best weld. Just bending the weld joint is sometimes enough to make it leak.
Let's assume you have a 3' x 2' tank (36" x 24") That's 864 in^2. If you pressurize that tank to 5 psi that's 4300lbf trying to rip that weld apart. If it were a round tank like a tanker it would withstand that pretty easily. But, since it has corners, those are the weak points and as it deforms puts some really bad stress on those welds. It's not safe to pressure test that high because it was never meant for that.
Just filling it with water and letting it sit is usually good enough to find a leak.
|
you are completely right lets stop the heated debate and insults (myself) and yes discuss this the right way, please see the next post