How old is that gas bottle?

[Karl Robbers]

I know what you mean Karl .There seem to be individuals in some workshops capable of breaking an anvil with a rubber hammer.I have seen one guy in the NT rolling an I beam into the shop from outside using the cylinders as rollers.At least the buggers could not arc on them.

If it means profit ,the new materials will be introduced sooner than later.

Grahame

Speaking of the breathing apparatus cylinders, I was amazed that they seem to not have an effective over pressure safety release device fitted. There is one that has exploded on display at the Bell Bay Fire Station, a Station that has the dubious distinction of being one of only two Fire Stations to burn down in Tasmania - a sore point with the Brigade as the arsonist concerned got off with 50 hours community work orders. Anyway in the infamous fire, there were several spare cylinders for the Breathing Apparatus stored in the Station, in the heat, pressure increased and the cylinders exploded in spectacular fashion, almost becoming flat sheets with a dome attached each end. I think they were 160 BAR units from memory.
Fire extinguishers explode well too. There is also one at Bell Bay on display that penetrated both sides of a concrete block wall when it exploded in the same fire.
Makes you wonder what an Oxygen cylinder would do if you arced on it. I've seen a couple come close to arcing on a cylinder through carelessness.

[soundman]

I think with the quantity of old recycled cylinders lying arround in both BOC and Liquid Air yards, I doubt that we will be seeing too many new cylinders from them any time soon.

Remember, by my reconing, if you have a steel cylinder from BOC....it dates to prior to 1985

Sort of the point of this thread.

and with the actual cylinders being manufactured in china these days.

I estimate the landed cost of a steel or aluminium cylinder "D" thru t "G" being around the $100-$150.....I dont see the new players going to any other technology any time soon.

I must go and give that new "G" a scratch....I recon she might be steel.

I expect that steel will be chepaer than aluminium...we may find new bottles comming in steel.

The problem with carbon fibre is its narrow failure margin...as the composite boat guys will tell you.......to get any real advantage from carbon fibre you have to run it close to its failure point......(close is a reative term)...while steel and aluminium will distort and partly fail before it gross fails.....carbon fibre does not have that behaviour.....its all good...then its busted big time.

I can see that there is a significant advantage to light weight, when you are carrying it on your back.......but is there a real weight advantage in a metal workshop and does that justify the increased risk and cost.


So go and look at those cylinders and tell me how old you recon they are.




Now here is a thaught.

It may indeed be that CIG went across to aluminium to save themselves money......remember back in 1985 they would not have been getting their cylinders made in china.....aluminium may not have been much more expensive that steel.

Think of the possible cost savings in freight.....gas bottles are dense and heavy so the freight cost would be in weight.
So by changing to aluminium, CIG may have been able t put another 20 bottes bottes on that truck.

You can bet ya boots if they went for lighter bottles...it was for their advantage not ours.

cheers

[soundman]

I am an old curmudgeon nit picker, I know full well !

BUT PLEASE !




Beer and other goodies comes in Bottles

But gas is contained in CYLINDERS

O- bloody -K

Grahame the grumpy

Yes we know they are mostly tall, round and not made of glass.

But By definition a bottle is a rigid container with a neck narrower than the body.


If we called it a bottle it could be another shape but cylindrical.


In the past, particularly in LPG there have been gas containers that where spercical or some roundish obloid shape.

It is interesting how the different terms are used.

In the US, it is common trade slang to refeer to gas containers as "jugs"......"I'm just going down the welding store for a jug of argon"

Now Gas containers are most certainly not jugs......rigid containers with wide open mouth.


OK Graham...we are tradesman, we measure in Milimeters and we use gas that comes from cylinders.

cheers

[soundman]

Just bumping this thread, I realy do want to hear how old those cylinders are.

cheers

[blouis79]

Help.

Perhaps you can post a photographic guide to figuring the age of the cylinder and making sense of old and new markings.

The only thing that is clear is a big stamp 2011, sprayed with silver paint. I'm guessing that is a recertification(???).

Came from Stargas/Elgas, but the cylinder is stamped BOC. There is another marking ending /03. Is that a date 2003, but I thought they were recertified after 10 years, unless is was done early to tranfser from BOC to Stargas/Elgas.?? Too many numbers on the bottle.

[soundman]

I wish I could produce a pictorial guide...but I don't know enough about how the whole thing has been managed over time.

One clue is that BOC replaced CIG in 1996....so any bottle branded with CIG logically dates before that time.

As far as I understand a bottle MUST be recertified at least every 10 years, but it may be recertified at any time.
Say for example the valve was replaced.....the bottle would most probably be stamped.

In times past, the whole testing and bottle tracking process will not have been as clearly defined as it is now.
This whole ten year certification may not have always been the case or at least not enforced.

Some of these bottles have sooo many stamps on them, as would be expected if they have been in circulation.

some of the marks are pretty clear what they mean others may be a little cryptic.

best guess will be good enough for our purposes

cheers

[blouis79]

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[soundman]

I'd say it would be a foar ausmption that that bottle was made in second month 2011......which being elgas branded that would seem fair...they have not been in the induatrial gas game long.

Note that the bottle in question has the threaded collar, that would take a helmet.

cheers

[blouis79]

Found a Standards Australia document called MP48-2008 "Certified Gas Cylinder Test Stations". As of 1/1/2003, the standard stamp of a test station is a little gas bottle on its side with a number in the middle. So the mark 2011/02 [781} should be the date and certified inspection station. Prior to 2003, they used all sorts of proprietary designs like watermarks.

AS2020.5 Gas Cylinders Part 5: Filling, Inspection and Testing of Refillable Cylinders specifies all the things which shall (standard speak for *must*) be stamped on the cylinder:
a. manufacturer's mark
b. manufacturer's serial number
c. design standard
d. water capacity
e. original tare mass
f. test pressure
g. date of original test
h. design registration number (where required by statutory regulation)
i. cylinder neck thread designation (15AU, 18AU, or 25AU)

Only month and last 2 digits of year are required for the date.

I think it is still feasible that the 2011/02 date is a recertification date and not necessarily original commissioning.

[soundman]

Yeh that 2011 dat I would say is the manufacture date due to tyhe size and the way it has been impressed.

The recertification stamps tend to be much smaller.
Remember tha gas company in question has only been doing industrial gasses a short while.

The realy old bottles are likley to be CIG.

cheers

[blouis79]

Technically, there appears to be no requirement for a manufacture date. My reading of the standard suggest all gas cylinders have to be certified in Australia by an Australian certified inspection station.

Do you think the first certifier puts on all the required markings?? I was thinking the manufacturer would do all they could except a certifier date and certifier ID. Unless they have an Australian company to outsource the job to China where the manufacturer is??

On my cylinder, some of the numbers are probably hidden under the Elgas sticker, since a lot of what is mandatory is not visible. Can't find a manufacturer's name. BOC started in 1994. I wouldn't be surprised if the cylinder is up to 20 years old judging from the paintwork condition. I'd agree the elgas sticker and elgas branded valve and neck tags are 3 years old. The fact that the Elgas sticker covers required markings suggests the cylinder was recertified for Elgas.

The apparent serial number with a /03 on the end could be a dated manufacturers serial number. 5 digits gives them 99,999 cylinders per year.

ISO 9809-1 first edition published June 1999.

[soundman]

I doubt very much if any new gas cylinders are recertified before being put into service.

While there will be differences required in construction the date stamping and recertification process will apply to all refillable gas bottles.....a 9.5Kg LPG gas bottle costs less to buy that it does to have it commercially recertified.

Mandating new, built to standard product, recertified before it can be used is not something that is supported in any part of the regulatory system.

These days all new gas containers will have the date stamped on them clearly at point of manufacture.
They will also be required to bear a standards mark or statement and ceretain particulars about the bottle.

If a cylinder is imported without the valve fitted, My expectation is that it would require inspection and stamping.

If however the cylinder is complete and was tested at point of manufacture in accordance with the Australian standards and marked accordingly.....it should be ready to go and require no recertification.

The fact that the sticker covers some text, means nothing.
The sticker has to be somewhere in that location.

cheers

[Karl Robbers]

While there will be differences required in construction the date stamping and recertification process will apply to all refillable gas bottles.....a 9.5Kg LPG gas bottle costs less to buy that it does to have it commercially recertified.

Even the 45Kg house gas cylinders seem to be throw aways. I used to be able to acquire as many as I wanted from a gas cartage contractor. They had a multitude of non pressure vessel uses.
I also learned from that contractor that an anomaly in the rules at the time, (possibly changed now I would hope), meant that if the individual vessel size was less than 50Kg capacity, a dangerous goods licence was not required by the driver of a truck carting such gas bottles.

[blouis79]

[...]If however the cylinder is complete and was tested at point of manufacture in accordance with the Australian standards and marked accordingly.....it should be ready to go and require no recertification.[...]

If marking at manufacture is what happens, then the certification stamp applied locally can only be a "recertification". In which case some other mark must be a manufacture date.

But according to AS2030.1-2009 Gas Cylinder Part 1: General Requirements
6. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS PRIOR TO FILLING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AUSTRALIA
6.1 Initial test station inspection and marking
Each cylinder shall be tested by a test station prior to the first filling in Australia, in accordance with AS2337.1 and other applicable parts of AS2337.


I read that as meaning the testing had to happen in Australia, but I guess it can be interpreted as begin able to be done anywhere on earth prior to filling in Australia. As long as the test station is certified to Australian Standards and has a suitable mark.

[Karl Robbers]

If marking at manufacture is what happens, then the certification stamp applied locally can only be a "recertification". In which case some other mark must be a manufacture date.

But according to AS2030.1-2009 Gas Cylinder Part 1: General Requirements
6. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS PRIOR TO FILLING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AUSTRALIA
6.1 Initial test station inspection and marking
Each cylinder shall be tested by a test station prior to the first filling in Australia, in accordance with AS2337.1 and other applicable parts of AS2337.


I read that as meaning the testing had to happen in Australia, but I guess it can be interpreted as begin able to be done anywhere on earth prior to filling in Australia. As long as the test station is certified to Australian Standards and has a suitable mark.

To add to that thought.
I remember my employer having a couple of forklift gas cylinders that had come in with grey import forklifts from Japan. The cylinders were well under ten years old, but unable to be filled as the certification was not recognised as meeting AS.
I am actually surprised that the refilling station actually bothered to look that closely, there may have been an internal safety alert come out regarding such import cylinders, but more likely I think that Boral Gas was trying to swing everyone over to their own cylinder program.
You used to just fill the forklift cylinders from the AutoGas bowser, but that was banned because idiots didn't open the bleed valves on the cylinders and there were accidents I believe.