Uses
Typically, a fuel tank must allow or provide the following:
- Storage of fuel: the system must contain a given quantity of fuel and must avoid leakage and limit evaporative emissions.
- Filling: the fuel tank must be filled in a secure way, without sparks.
- Provide a method for determining level of fuel in tank, gauging (the remaining quantity of fuel in the tank must be measured or evaluated).
- Venting (if over-pressure is not allowed, the fuel vapors must be managed through valves).
- Feeding of the engine (through a pump).
- Anticipate potentials for damage and provide safe survival potential.
Plastic (high-density polyethylene HDPE) as a fuel tank material of construction, while functionally viable in the short term, has a long term potential to become saturated as fuels such as diesel and gasoline permeate the HDPE material.
Considering the inertia and kinetic energy of fuel in a plastic tank being transported by a vehicle, environmental stress cracking is a definite potential. The flammability of fuel makes stress cracking a possible cause of catastrophic failure. Emergencies aside, HDPE plastic is suitable for short term storage of diesel and gasoline. In the U.S., Underwriters Laboratories approved (UL 142) tanks would be a minimum design consideration.
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