Tube Trailer Volume Calculation

Tube trailers are used by the packaged gas industry to transport large quantities of high pressure gases.

The TrackAbout Tube Trailer Volume Calculation Module is used to determine the gas volume inside of a tube trailer. Without this module, the volume is typically determined either by using paper charts or by a desktop computer application. This module moves these calculations into the hands of the mobile worker and stores the calculated volumes in the history of the tube trailer.

The volume of a tube trailer is commonly calculated:

• After being filled

• After being returned from a customer.

This allows the calculation of how much gas:

• Is pumped into a tube trailer during the filling process. This is used for gas use/gas loss reporting at the fill facility. It is also used to know the full volume of the tube trailer.

• Was used by the customer. This is used to properly bill the customer for the gas inside the trailer.

How It Works

• Contact TrackAbout Support to enable this feature for you and to do the "technical" setup. This must be completed before you can continue with the following steps.

• Setup the Tube Trailers

  1. Create Asset Categories, Asset Groups, Asset Types, and Product Codes for the kind of tube trailers you will track.

  2. Assign each Asset Type to the gas contents. This is needed for proper gas volume calculation based on the physical properties of each gas. See list of supported gases below.

  3. Setup Volume Collection Rules from the TrackAbout Config section of the site. The Asset Types for the Tube Trailers must be set to collect the volume using the “Calculate using Temperate/Pressure” method.

  4. Create an asset for each trailer. This is done through the normal Add New process.

  5. Each trailer is assigned a water volume from the website. This can be done from the Edit Asset page on the site.

  6. Sync any handhelds and they will be updated with a downloadable list of tube trailers, their gases and their water volumes.

• Use the tube trailer volume calculator on the TrackAbout handheld to determine the volume.

  1. Start a "Set Volume" or "Fill" action on the handheld.

  2. Scan the barcode or RFID tag for the asset. The handheld will confirm that this tube trailer exists and that the handheld knows its gas and water volume.

  3. Enter the current temperature

  4. Enter the current volume. It is important that all tubes be open and connected to the same pressure gauge for this to work.

  5. TrackAbout takes the above values and calculates the volume

  6. The volume is shown to the user and the user is asked to confirm that all looks right.

• Perform an Analysis on the trailer if needed

• View the current and past volumes for each trailer in the trailer's Asset History on the TrackAbout site

• Report on amount of gas pumped into tube trailers. This calculation determines the amount of gas added to each trailer in each Fill action. To do this it takes each Fill action's final volume and subtracts out the Empty Asset Volume. The "Empty Asset Volume" is really the most recent previous volume calculation. It comes from either a Set Volume action that sets the volume of the trailer when it was returned from the last customer, or from the Full Volume calculation of a previous Fill.

Volume filled = (Volume recorded after filling) minus (lowest volume set on this trailer up to and including the last fill action)

 

The report is called "Volume Summary" and is in the Locations section of the left navigation. Here is a link:

https://www.trackabout.com/clt/locations/assetVolumeSummary.aspx

This calculation determines the amount of gas added to each trailer in each Fill action. To do this it takes each Fill action's final volume and subtracts out the lowest volume set on the trailer up to and including the last Fill action. So if a tube trailer has three Set Volume actions performed on it since its last Fill, the calculation will take the lowest volume of these three Set Volume action and the last Fill action and use the lowest volume found as the starting volume for the Fill calculation. The reason for this is that it can take a long time to fill a tube trailer (sometimes overnight) and it may be useful to record the volume during the middle of the filling process - for instance to know how much gas was used during a shift.

Supported Gases and Units of Measure

The tube trailer volume calculator currently supports calculating volumes for the following gases:

• Air

• Helium

• Hydrogen

• Nitrogen

• Oxygen

Today the calculations are performed in units of Fahrenheit, Pounds Per Square Inch (PSI) and Standard Cubic Feet (SCF). Please contact TrackAbout if you would like to use metric units.