Testing and qualifying a cylinder’s integrity on a regular basis is an important function of industrial gas distribution and is regulated by the US Department of Transportation (DOT). Recently, DOT issued special permits that allow for certain Division 2.1 and 2.2 materials (gases classified as hazardous) in DOT 3A, 3AA, 3AX, 3AAX, 3T, and 107A cylinders to be requalified every ten years instead of every five years.
This new permit applies to most of the gases industrial gas distributors carry (see sidebar) and represents an opportunity for savings because it doubles the time between testing.
Taking advantage of this special permit, however, requires meeting a new set of regulations. Steve Aderholt, President of The Western Group, which includes Western Sales & Testing, explains his experience: “Western Sales & Testing is a sister company of P-Leasing, Inc., which has a large fleet of tube trailers that it leases to various customers throughout the US. P-Leasing could not take advantage of the Western Sales special permit to allow ten-year retest because their customers had no way of collecting and sending the necessary data required under the new permit to us. Our solution was to develop a new gas monitoring system, which we call Vapr.”
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