Warehouses storing substances and preparations in liquid or gaseous form operate all over the world. Most often, these are raw materials that are subsequently processed or used for sanitary and hygienic purposes. Due to their consistency, they are often transported (conveyed) from the warehouse to their destination via pipelines (transmission installations). An operating warehouse may also contain or have installations supplying various agents to it, for example, water (fire protection or heating installation) or gas (gas heating). In practice, a facility may have many pipelines through which various agents are moved. Such a situation can cause certain safety risks resulting from a lack of traceability. In order to eliminate the emerging risks, it is advisable that individual installations be properly marked. Guidelines for pipeline marking are defined by the following standards:
– PN-70/N-01270/03 Guidelines for pipeline marking. Identification color code for conveyed agents.
– PN-70/N-01270/07 Guidelines for pipeline marking. Identification bands.
Pipelines are marked using two types of identification bands:
– Single-colored (Figure 1), the color of which determines the type of conveyed agent (in accordance with Table 1).
– Two-colored (Figure 2), which consists of an identification color and a warning color, with colors in accordance with Tables 1 and 2.
The width a of the identification bands placed on the pipelines, as well as their spacing (Figure 3), depends on the pipe diameter, in accordance with Table 3. The method of pipeline marking presented in the aforementioned standards is not complicated, and when applied in practice, it allows for their identification. As is commonly known, standards are technical documents – in this case, supporting operation while simultaneously increasing work safety. However, they do not exclude the use of other methods of marking operating pipelines in practice, which would allow for even more precise identification of the conveyed substances and preparations in both liquid and gaseous form.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 1/2008.