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- Cylinder fittings vary between gas types, inert, oxidizing, corrosive, and flammable.
- Never use grease or PFTE/Teflon™ tape to force a fitting—you may be putting together two types of incompatible fittings!
- Always use non-sparking tools (brass or aluminum) to work on flammable or oxidizing gas fittings.
- Fittings and tubing must be compatible with the gas. For example, CGA 480 580 fittings are only for inert gases like helium or argon.
- Flammable and poisonous gases may only be used with stainless steel tubing.
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Gas bottle racks are mainly stored on the UpperTween Deck on the Joides Resolution. Some gas bottles are located in the labs (i.e. chemistry). A gas bottle inventory is kept at this location on the server: ALO/Logistics/Gas Bottles and is updated each expedition/crew change, when changes occur.
Gas bottles are color coded on the neck of the cylinder based on their gas content:
Argon – Brown
Helium – Yellow
Oxygen – White
Like every other supply, gas bottles get cycled through, so that the oldest on board get used first and the newly delivered should be stored to be used last (at the back of the gas rack assemblage).
Shipping to shore
When a gas bottle rack is prepared for shipment back to shore, each cylinder is vented outside (either on the dock or on the landing). When venting out cylinders ALWAYS open the bottle slowly and control the noise level.
When preparing shipping gas racks, the following procedure shall be followed in AMS:
1) Gas bottles are usually sent in the SURF container (shipment).
2) Use the 'Gas Bottle' function to add a gas bottle rack (pallet) to that shipment. This function will automatically fill in the gas bottles on the rack.
C) Shore procedures
Banding
The location and amount of banding used on the gas bottle racks has varied over time. In order to streamline that process, the following banding SOP should be used (see Fig. 1):
Use 1 ¾ “ banding.
Rotate the gas bottles, so that the cylinder valve/outlet is rotated outward for easy connection in the lab.
Place the first four straps around a cluster of 4 bottles, one cluster right, one cluster left. The banding needs to go through the inside bars of the rack if possible. Place two straps on the top 3rd and two straps on the lower 3rd of the rack (See Fig. 1)
The next step is to strap the 2 clusters together. Use one strap just above the upper strapping and one strap above the lower strapping.
Stencil “DO NOT CUT” on the outer two straps.
Fig. 1 Gas bottle rack side and top view. Rack - black, Blue - gas bottles, Green - banding, Grey - banding.
One page PDF instruction HERE.
D) Vendor interactions
Pressure testing and refill
The gas bottle cylinders have to be hydro tested (pressure tested) every 5 years. The hydrostatic test date will be stamped into the collar of the cylinder (for more information, see SAFETY paragraph).
AMS/warehousing process to refill gas cylinders that are used on the ship:
In an effort to more accurately track the usage and cost of the gas cylinders by AMS inventory numbers, the procedure described below will be used.
The TAS business coordinator (John Miller) will be responsible for working with the vendor to fill the cylinders and see that these are returned to IODP in a timely manner.
When IODP gas cylinders, used in the labs onboard the ship, return in the surface shipment from a port call, they will be sent to a vendor to be refilled.
1) When the cylinders arrive, the supervisor of technical services (Brad Julson) and the TAS business coordinator (John Miller) will be notified and a requisition will be prepared in AMS, using the gas rack numbers (GR numbers), or for individual cylinders, the gas bottle (GB) numbers. The costs can initially be entered as $1 until the actual statement arrives with actual costs.
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Take pictures of all gas bottle racks that get received on the ship as soon as they come out of the container.
All gas bottles receive a yellow tag when they arrive on the JR. The tag is labeled with the expedition, that it was delivered to. When the gas bottle gets hooked up to the system, the first part of the tag (FULL) gets pulled off, so that the tag displays that the gas bottle is IN SERVICE. Once that bottle is empty, the IN SERVICE tag should be removed and the status EMPTY will be displayed. Write purged on each bottle tag, once the gas bottles on the rack were purged on the dock/before it gets loaded into a container.
Gas bottles are color coded on the neck of the cylinder based on their gas content:
Argon – Brown
Helium – Yellow
Oxygen – White
Like every other supply, gas bottles get cycled through, so that the oldest on board get used first and the newly delivered should be stored to be used last (at the back of the gas rack assemblage).
Shipping to shore
When a gas bottle rack is prepared for shipment back to shore, each cylinder is vented outside (either on the dock or on the landing). When venting out cylinders ALWAYS open the bottle slowly and control the noise level.
When preparing shipping gas racks, the following procedure shall be followed in AMS:
1) Gas bottles are usually sent in the SURF container (shipment).
2) Use the 'Gas Bottle' function to add a gas bottle rack (pallet) to that shipment. This function will automatically fill in the gas bottles on the rack.
C) Shore procedures
Banding
The location and amount of banding used on the gas bottle racks has varied over time. In order to streamline that process, the following banding SOP should be used (see Fig. 1):
Use ¾ “ banding for green banding, and 1 1/2" banding for the grey banding.
Rotate the gas bottles, so that the cylinder valve/outlet is rotated outward for easy connection in the lab.
Place the first four straps around a cluster of 4 bottles, one cluster right, one cluster left. The banding needs to go through the inside bars of the rack if possible. Place two straps on the top 3rd and two straps on the lower 3rd of the rack (See Fig. 1).
The next step is to strap the 2 clusters together and should go around the outer part of the rack. Use one strap just above the upper strapping and one strap above the lower strapping.
Stencil “DO NOT CUT” on the outer two straps.
Fig. 1 Gas bottle rack side and top view. Rack - black, Blue - gas bottles, Green - banding, Grey - banding.
One page PDF instruction HERE.
D) Vendor interactions
Pressure testing and refill
The gas bottle cylinders have to be hydro tested (pressure tested) every 5 years. The hydrostatic test date will be stamped into the collar of the cylinder (for more information, see SAFETY paragraph).
AMS/warehousing process to refill gas cylinders that are used on the ship:
In an effort to more accurately track the usage and cost of the gas cylinders by AMS inventory numbers, the procedure described below will be used.
The TAS business coordinator (John Miller) will be responsible for working with the vendor to fill the cylinders and see that these are returned to IODP in a timely manner.
When IODP gas cylinders, used in the labs onboard the ship, return in the surface shipment from a port call, they will be sent to a vendor to be refilled.
1) When the cylinders arrive, the supervisor of technical services (Brad Julson) and the TAS business coordinator (John Miller) will be notified and a requisition will be prepared in AMS, using the gas rack numbers (GR numbers), or for individual cylinders, the gas bottle (GB) numbers. The costs can initially be entered as $1 until the actual statement arrives with actual costs.
2) Once the requisition has been prepared, the vendor will be notified to pick up the cylinders by the warehouse man/IODP dock.
ADDED: The warehouse man/IODP dock prepares shipping papers to send the racks/cylinders to be refilled (see Fig.). The papers will be created as shore shipment under the expedition that the gas racks came back from. The shipment fields should be populated as follows:
Shipment Code: XXX_refill (XXX - the expedition # that the gas rack came back from)
Shipment Type: SF (surface)
Notes: Gas bottles going to refill vendor
Ship To: Airgas
Shipper: IODP
RA Number: XXXXXX (REQ # that was created for the refill, can be inquired from TAS Business Coordinator or looked up under Orders/Requisition).
The shipment should be sent, when the vendor picks up the gas racks.
When the vendor takes the bottles to be refilled, the vendor must produce a receipt indicating which gas racks and gas cylinders have been picked up, both by the IODP gas rack /gas bottle number as well as the serial numbers. This receipt must be scanned and entered into AMS as an attachment for the requisition (REQ).
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3) When the refilled gas racks/cylinders are returned to IODP by the vendor, these must be checked in as received in the AMS requisition. The packing slip from the vendor must list the bottles by AMS GB and GR numbers, as well as by serial numbers. This receipt must be scanned and entered into AMS as an attachment for the requisition.
ADDED: The warehouse man/IODP dock will NOT receive the racks back in AMS.
The packing slip will be given to John Miller and when the statement arrives from the vendor, the AMS requisition will be invoiced with the actual costs. This will ensure that we can track gas racks/cylinders location and usage.
The warehouseman will check the received full gas racks into the shore warehouse inventory. The status of the gas rack, when viewed in Item Master, will now show up in the “Qty On Shore” field. SimilarilySimilarly, when the gas racks are allocated to a shipment, or are in the shipment to the ship, these will show up in the “QTY Allocated” and “Qty In Transit” fields in the Item Master screen.
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