SpudFiles

Hi guys,

In my current setup, i am using a fire extinguisher as a ''pressure vessel''.
i have a fridge compressor connected to it using quick connect. It has a 12 bar pop-off valve and a manometer which goes up to 16 bar. Currently i'm not upping the pressure any higher then 7 bar for ''safety reasons''. i was looking for a way to test if my tank would be able to support a higher pressure. i read something about hydrostatic pressure tests and this seems like a proper way to test the capability of the tank while reducing the damage it can cause. i was wondering if you guys have any experience with (hydrostatically) testing your air tanks and are maybe eager to share this with me.

if this is a very common question please link me to the post on the site because i cant seem to find anything about this subject.

With kind regards,

Bram R

Hydrostatic testing is a pretty straight forward process.

1 - Fill your tank with water.
2 - Pressurize the tank to the pressure you're interested in.

Really, that's it! The only question tends to be how do you pressurize your tank. For small tanks (like you have), a hand-powered grease gun is a good way to do it. For large tanks, a pressure washer (with a few adapters in place of the nozzle) is a good way. In either case, *do* use a pressure gauge and beware that if you have zero bubbles in the system the pressure can rise *very* fast and damage your tank. With this in mind, it's often nice to have a very small (<<--- SMALL!!!) bubble in the system to provide a buffer. Note that the larger the bubble, the less safe the procedure so remember that you're balancing likelihood of damage due to rapid pressure rise with safety.

Thanks for the quick reply!

That could indeed be a problem for me. I only have my fridge compressor to reach the pressures that i want to achieve. This may cause the pressure to rise too quick. I do have a pneumatic quick connect tube which is 2,5mm ID and has a length of about 4,5 m. A quick calculation tells me there will be about 80 mL of air in the tube. The tube is rated for 10 bar and will probably be able to hold a lot more. Do you think this is a sufficient volume to use as a buffer? (so that the compressor has some more volume to compress in and the increase in pressure will go a bit slower)

With kind regards,

Bram R