Reservoir Leak Check

[Drinds]

Hi,

I am involved in a project wth a large reservoir in a waste treatment facility. We are in the construction phase, and would like to know methods to test water tightness of the reservoir since time is an issue.

We are considering filling the reservoir with water up to a certain level and monitor the losses... if we detect a certain leak, we would let the water settle just below the leak point, to determine were the leak is.

Any other methods_ thankyou

Regards

 

[JStephen]

Assuming this is concrete, you'll likely get most of the useful answers on your crosspost in Structural.

 

[rconner]

I guess what is reasonable or obtainable might to some extent depend on the type of reservoir you are dealing with, the purpose and criticality of the containment and other factors. When filling-type head/hydrostatic testing is performed, I suspect most practioners are probably doing something like what you are envisioning (notice e.g. one reinforced concrete reservoir testing procedure it appears required at

http://www.gov.mb.ca/ia/mwsb/pdf/scs_134210.pdf​).

About only other things I will mention is that I know there are some requirements for testing steel tanks e.g. in AWWA standard D100, and these suggest in addition to fill hydrotesting and repair as nec'y the concepts of doing some NDT/QA of any "seams", welds or joints of the tanks involved in the construction of same, and before same are filled (e.g. with vacuum/sight boxes etc). Also, in any filling/head tests the surrounding water table may be a factor, and they likely would mean more if the water table at the time of testing is below the level of the bottom etc (if the water level goes up during the test, you might have a problem as well!)