In late 2014, Kiewit Construction awarded Superior Tank Company Inc. the contract to manufacture and install a water storage tank as part of a large rail operations center. The facility is part of the $486,000,000 Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension project located in Southern California, and includes 11.5 miles of light rail track as well as an operations and maintenance facility.
The bolted steel tank is part of the Sentinel series of fire protection tanks manufactured by Superior Tank Company Inc. The Sentinel steel tank for the project was engineered to the specific requirements of the project and was designed to store 600,000 gallons of water for fire protection. The tank meets AWWA D103 standards and applicable local building codes. In addition, the tank includes special features and complies with NFPA 22 standards to ensure the tank operates properly for fire suppression. As the tank is considered essential for post-earthquake recovery and is essential to the life, health and safety of the public including post-earthquake fire suppression, the tank was designed to Seismic Use Group III and Risk Category IV standards. This Seismic Use Group is the most stringent and requires seismic design loads be increased 50%.
The exterior powder coating on this Sentinel tank is a custom color to match the other structures on the site and Superior Tank Company Inc. manufactures tanks in a wide variety of standard and custom colors. The high gloss powder coating was applied at the factory using specialized equipment and is expressly formulated for maximum UV resistance. For exceptional corrosion resistance, encapsulated nuts and bolts were used throughout the tank.
The steel tank was installed by the Superior Tank field team and erection took only twelve days. As other elements of the project were occurring simultaneously, Superior Tank had to coordinate the Sentinel tank installation with the general contractor to eliminate scheduling conflicts. As only basic assembly work was required on the job site, local traffic and site disruption was minimized.
