The super-sized LNG storage base in south China's Guangdong Province has made several breakthroughs in its design and construction, as the second phase of the base was completed on Friday.
Located in Zhuhai City, the second phase of the base named Jinwan "Green Energy Port" consists of five large liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks with the world's largest single tank capacity of 270, 000 cubic meters.
The Jinwan "Green Energy Port" project is one of the LNG storage tank projects with the most complex geological conditions and the most difficult seismic design in China.
"Due to the large bedrock slope angle, among all the 2,030 piles built for the five storage tanks in the second phase of the Jinwan 'Green Energy Port' project, the longest is 70.6 meters and the shortest is 5 meters, representing the greatest variation in size among domestic storage tanks," said Han Xiaokang, a project manager of the second phase of Jinwan "Green Energy Port" project.
To overcome the limitations of tank capacity and enhance the safety and stability of storage tanks in multiple extreme conditions, engineering technicians have innovatively developed a fully autonomous technology system for the 270,000-cubic-meter LNG storage tanks, successfully overcoming the technical challenges such as structural stability analysis and seismic isolation designing.
"Each storage tank has more than 400 customized seismic isolation rubber supports at its base, creating a seismic isolation layer. When an earthquake occurs, the vibration energy from the lower foundation is first transmitted to the seismic isolation rubber supports. Through the deformation of the rubber under stress, most of the earthquake's energy is buffered and reduced, effectively preventing the transmission of seismic energy to the upper storage tank structure," said Huang Huan, a technical director of the second phase of Jinwan "Green Energy Port" project.
According to Huang, the engineering technicians have also independently developed a pile foundation technology, effectively reducing the probability of local damage and instability, with the average load difference on the pile foundation decreasing by 83 percent.
China's super-sized LNG storage base makes breakthroughs in design, construction
