Pipe size and water volume

[sdrobertson]

I have a question on mixing water in pressurized storage. I read somewhere that someone had use a pipe inside the tank with allot of holes drilled in to limit the rate of turbulence in the tank to promote more stratification. I'm standing my tanks on end (four-500 gallon propane) so I won't have much room to insert a long pipe. Would it help decrease the mixing if I made my manifold a size or two larger than the supply pipe so the water will flow slower before it enters the 4 tanks? I know the pump will pump x-amount of water, so will it enter the tank slower but with the same volume with larger entry holes or would this just be a waste of materials?

 

[termite]

That's what I did on my tank. I made six foot long manifolds out of 1 1/4" black iron for the top and bottom of my tank. I drilled 27 3/8" holes in each. I gradually put the holes closer to each other as I approached the end of the pipe. I don't know if that was the correct number and spacing of holes or not.

I'm sure someone on this board knows enough about hydraulics to help you figure out the proper layout and spacing for the holes for your system. If I had thought about it a little more I would have hooked the garden hose up to the pipe and drilled holes where they needed to be to get good even flow along the length of the manifold.
My tank seems to work well with this set up. I get good stratification and with the bottom set of holes turned up I'm not stirring up any sediment.

 

[sdrobertson]

It was your setup termite that I had seen. The reason I'm asking about increasing the size going into the tank is that I'm standing them upright and would only have like 3' of pipe in the tank which I'm not sure would prevent it from mixing more than a 1" feed line going to say 2" or 3" short pipe before entering the tank.

 

[termite]

I would think a propane tank standing on end would not need a manifold. You are probably right in using larger diameter pipes at the tanks to slow down the water and reduce mixing. You might still think about projecting the lower pipe into the tank to let sediment and scale fall to the bottom without being stirred up.

 

[barnartist]

as sdrobertson probably knows, I too am doing something similar. I may skip on the mini holes just because it would involve so much at this point. Sadly, I already have only 1" pipe nipples on the tank.