Storage projects are decided in the spec, not in the bid. By the time an RFQ is issued, the capacity, the coating system, the anchorage basis and the submittal requirements have already been written down — usually twelve to twenty-four months earlier, by someone working from a section they inherited.
This page exists to make that section better. Everything below is written by our engineers, free, editable, and unbranded enough to drop straight into a project manual: CSI three-part sections, sizing tables, dimensioned CAD reference details, and the submittal forms that decide whether the tank you specified is the tank that gets built.
No gate, no form, no email address. Nothing on this page is behind a lead capture. Use it, edit it, rename it, and delete our name from it. We would rather be the basis of design than a line on a mailing list.
Full Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 sections for bolted steel storage tanks, written in the format your project manual already uses. Each one carries bracketed [SPECIFIER: …] prompts at the decisions that genuinely require project-specific input — resolve them and delete the brackets.
These are a basis of design. They are not an engineering design for your project, and they do not relieve the Engineer of Record of anything. Verify that every referenced standard is the edition your jurisdiction has adopted.
Powder-coated bolted RFP steel tank for potable water, covering the factory thermoset epoxy coating system, structure, appurtenances, and NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 certification of every wetted material.
Bolted steel tank for municipal and industrial wastewater service, with the lining system, corrosion allowance and appurtenance requirements that separate a tank that lasts from one that gets relined in year seven.
Dedicated fire-water storage, written to coordinate with the NFPA 22 requirements the authority having jurisdiction will apply — capacity, refill, connections, freeze protection, and the discharge arrangement.
Bolted stainless construction for aggressive chemistry, high-purity service and applications where a coating is the wrong answer. Includes alloy selection, passivation and weld-finish requirements.
The bolted tank configurator produces a complete three-part section for the exact diameter, height, service, coating system and appurtenance list you select — routed automatically to Section 33 16 13 for water utility service or Section 43 41 13 for process and wastewater service, with the capacity, hydrostatic head and shell area already computed into the text. It downloads as an editable Word document, not a PDF.
A storage tank is rarely one section. The scope splits across five or six divisions, and the gaps between them are where change orders are born — the foundation section that does not state a levelness tolerance, the coating section that never says who does field touch-up, the electrical section that assumes someone else is bonding the shell.
| Scope item | Typical section | Division | The coordination note people miss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33 16 13 | Steel Water Storage Tanks | 33 — Utilities | Use for potable, raw and fire-protection water. Say explicitly whether the tank supplier or the general contractor carries offloading and erection. |
| 43 41 13 | Field-Erected Liquid Storage Tanks | 43 — Process Liquid Storage | Use for wastewater, process and chemical service. State the design chemistry, temperature and specific gravity, not just the volume. |
| 33 13 00 | Disinfecting of Water Utility Distribution | 33 — Utilities | Reference AWWA C652 and name who pays for a failed bacteriological sample and the refill that follows. |
| 03 30 00 | Cast-in-Place Concrete | 03 — Concrete | The ring wall levelness and roundness tolerance must match the tank manufacturer’s written requirement, not a generic slab tolerance. |
| 31 23 00 | Excavation and Fill | 31 — Earthwork | Specify the interior fill and sand cushion, the compaction requirement, and the allowable differential settlement during hydrostatic test. |
| 05 50 00 | Metal Fabrications | 05 — Metals | Anchor bolts, embeds and platform steel. Coordinate the anchorage design load with the tank supplier’s stamped calculations. |
| 09 96 00 | High-Performance Coatings | 09 — Finishes | If the tank is factory-coated, keep the shop system in the tank section and use this section for field touch-up only — or the two will contradict each other. |
| 07 21 00 | Thermal Insulation | 07 — Thermal & Moisture Protection | Tank insulation is often written here and sometimes in a Division 40 process-insulation section. Pick one. State the jacketing, the banding, and the vapor barrier. |
| 13 34 00 | Fabricated Engineered Structures | 13 — Special Construction | Where an aluminum geodesic dome cover is procured separately from the tank. If the tank and cover are one purchase, keep the cover in the tank section. |
| 26 42 00 | Cathodic Protection | 26 — Electrical | Anode type, quantity, and who commissions and records baseline readings. An uncommissioned CP system is a warranty exclusion waiting to be found. |
| 40 90 00 | Instrumentation and Control for Process Systems | 40 — Process Interconnections | Level, overflow alarm, and coating-breach monitoring. State the signal type and who terminates at the panel. |
| 43 21 00 | Liquid Pumps | 43 — Process Equipment | Coordinate the suction nozzle size and elevation with the tank section, and check NPSH against the low operating level, not the nominal capacity. |
Whichever numbering your office uses, the useful discipline is the same: every interface in the list above should be named in exactly one section, and that section should say who performs the work and who accepts it.
Printed here so they are readable and searchable, and downloadable as CSV with more rows and more precision. All of it is geometry and hydrostatics — nothing here is proprietary, nothing is vendor-specific, and none of it is a substitute for a stamped design.
V (gal) = π/4 × D² × H × 7.480519. Full sidewall depth, so deduct your freeboard for the usable operating volume. Roof and floor geometry are excluded.
| Diameter | Gal / vert ft | 8′ sidewall | 12′ sidewall | 16′ sidewall | 20′ sidewall | 24′ sidewall | 32′ sidewall | 40′ sidewall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12′ | 846 | 6,768 | 10,152 | 13,536 | 16,921 | 20,305 | 27,073 | 33,841 |
| 15′ | 1,322 | 10,575 | 15,863 | 21,151 | 26,438 | 31,726 | 42,301 | 52,877 |
| 18′ | 1,904 | 15,228 | 22,843 | 30,457 | 38,071 | 45,685 | 60,914 | 76,142 |
| 21′ | 2,591 | 20,728 | 31,091 | 41,455 | 51,819 | 62,183 | 82,911 | 103,638 |
| 24′ | 3,384 | 27,073 | 40,609 | 54,146 | 67,682 | 81,219 | 108,291 | 135,364 |
| 27′ | 4,283 | 34,264 | 51,396 | 68,528 | 85,660 | 102,792 | 137,056 | 171,320 |
| 30′ | 5,288 | 42,301 | 63,452 | 84,603 | 105,753 | 126,904 | 169,205 | 211,507 |
| 36′ | 7,614 | 60,914 | 91,371 | 121,828 | 152,285 | 182,742 | 243,656 | 304,570 |
| 42′ | 10,364 | 82,911 | 124,366 | 165,821 | 207,277 | 248,732 | 331,643 | 414,553 |
| 48′ | 13,536 | 108,291 | 162,437 | 216,583 | 270,729 | 324,874 | 433,166 | 541,457 |
| 54′ | 17,132 | 137,056 | 205,585 | 274,113 | 342,641 | 411,169 | 548,225 | 685,282 |
| 60′ | 21,151 | 169,205 | 253,808 | 338,411 | 423,013 | 507,616 | 676,821 | 846,027 |
| 72′ | 30,457 | 243,656 | 365,484 | 487,311 | 609,139 | 730,967 | 974,623 | 1,218,279 |
| 84′ | 41,455 | 331,643 | 497,464 | 663,285 | 829,106 | 994,928 | 1,326,570 | 1,658,213 |
| 96′ | 54,146 | 433,166 | 649,749 | 866,331 | 1,082,914 | 1,299,497 | 1,732,663 | 2,165,829 |
| 108′ | 68,528 | 548,225 | 822,338 | 1,096,451 | 1,370,563 | 1,644,676 | 2,192,902 | 2,741,127 |
| 120′ | 84,603 | 676,821 | 1,015,232 | 1,353,643 | 1,692,054 | 2,030,464 | 2,707,286 | 3,384,107 |
Read this before you write a diameter into a spec. Available diameters and course heights are set by panel geometry and differ by manufacturer. Specifying a nominal capacity with an acceptable diameter range keeps more than one bidder in the job; specifying an exact diameter can quietly make it a sole-source purchase.
For site layout, containment sizing, and first-pass coating quantities. Shell area is the sidewall only (π × D × H); floor area equals the footprint.
| Diameter | Footprint (sq ft) | Circumference (ft) | Gal / vert ft | Gal / vert in | Shell @ 16′ (sq ft) | Shell @ 24′ (sq ft) | Shell @ 32′ (sq ft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12′ | 113 | 37.7 | 846 | 71 | 603 | 905 | 1,206 |
| 15′ | 177 | 47.1 | 1,322 | 110 | 754 | 1,131 | 1,508 |
| 18′ | 254 | 56.5 | 1,904 | 159 | 905 | 1,357 | 1,810 |
| 21′ | 346 | 66.0 | 2,591 | 216 | 1,056 | 1,583 | 2,111 |
| 24′ | 452 | 75.4 | 3,384 | 282 | 1,206 | 1,810 | 2,413 |
| 27′ | 573 | 84.8 | 4,283 | 357 | 1,357 | 2,036 | 2,714 |
| 30′ | 707 | 94.2 | 5,288 | 441 | 1,508 | 2,262 | 3,016 |
| 36′ | 1,018 | 113.1 | 7,614 | 635 | 1,810 | 2,714 | 3,619 |
| 42′ | 1,385 | 131.9 | 10,364 | 864 | 2,111 | 3,167 | 4,222 |
| 48′ | 1,810 | 150.8 | 13,536 | 1,128 | 2,413 | 3,619 | 4,825 |
| 54′ | 2,290 | 169.6 | 17,132 | 1,428 | 2,714 | 4,072 | 5,429 |
| 60′ | 2,827 | 188.5 | 21,151 | 1,763 | 3,016 | 4,524 | 6,032 |
| 72′ | 4,072 | 226.2 | 30,457 | 2,538 | 3,619 | 5,429 | 7,238 |
| 84′ | 5,542 | 263.9 | 41,455 | 3,455 | 4,222 | 6,333 | 8,445 |
| 96′ | 7,238 | 301.6 | 54,146 | 4,512 | 4,825 | 7,238 | 9,651 |
| 108′ | 9,161 | 339.3 | 68,528 | 5,711 | 5,429 | 8,143 | 10,857 |
| 120′ | 11,310 | 377.0 | 84,603 | 7,050 | 6,032 | 9,048 | 12,064 |
Divide the area by the theoretical coverage on the coating data sheet, then add a loss factor — 25 to 40 percent is realistic for spray application on a bolted shell, and higher for brush and roll touch-up. Add the roof area separately; it depends on the roof type and slope.
p (psi) = 62.4 × h / 144 for water at 60 °F. Multiply by specific gravity for anything else — 12.5 percent sodium hypochlorite runs about 1.21, 50 percent caustic about 1.53, 93 percent sulfuric about 1.84.
| Depth below surface | psi — SG 1.00 | psi — SG 1.21 | psi — SG 1.53 | psi — SG 1.84 | in. water column |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4′ | 1.73 | 2.10 | 2.65 | 3.19 | 48 |
| 8′ | 3.47 | 4.19 | 5.30 | 6.38 | 96 |
| 12′ | 5.20 | 6.29 | 7.96 | 9.57 | 144 |
| 16′ | 6.93 | 8.39 | 10.61 | 12.76 | 192 |
| 20′ | 8.67 | 10.49 | 13.26 | 15.95 | 240 |
| 24′ | 10.40 | 12.58 | 15.91 | 19.14 | 288 |
| 28′ | 12.13 | 14.68 | 18.56 | 22.33 | 336 |
| 32′ | 13.87 | 16.78 | 21.22 | 25.51 | 384 |
| 36′ | 15.60 | 18.88 | 23.87 | 28.70 | 432 |
| 40′ | 17.33 | 20.97 | 26.52 | 31.89 | 480 |
| 44′ | 19.07 | 23.07 | 29.17 | 35.08 | 528 |
| 48′ | 20.80 | 25.17 | 31.82 | 38.27 | 576 |
Useful for sizing a nozzle rating, checking a valve or gauge selection, and sanity-checking a submitted calculation. It is not a shell design. Bolted steel water tanks are designed to AWWA D103, where course thickness, joint efficiency, corrosion allowance, and the seismic and wind load cases usually govern — and the final design must be sealed by a licensed engineer.
Q (gpm) = v (ft/s) × A (sq ft) × 448.831, using Schedule 40 steel inside diameters per ASME B36.10M. Lined, plastic and stainless pipe have a different bore — recheck the velocity.
| NPS | Sch 40 ID (in) | Area (sq in) | gpm @ 2 ft/s | gpm @ 3 ft/s | gpm @ 5 ft/s | gpm @ 7 ft/s | gpm @ 10 ft/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2″ | 2.067 | 3.36 | 21 | 31 | 52 | 73 | 105 |
| 3″ | 3.068 | 7.39 | 46 | 69 | 115 | 161 | 230 |
| 4″ | 4.026 | 12.73 | 79 | 119 | 198 | 278 | 397 |
| 6″ | 6.065 | 28.89 | 180 | 270 | 450 | 630 | 900 |
| 8″ | 7.981 | 50.03 | 312 | 468 | 780 | 1,091 | 1,559 |
| 10″ | 10.020 | 78.85 | 492 | 737 | 1,229 | 1,720 | 2,458 |
| 12″ | 11.938 | 111.93 | 698 | 1,047 | 1,744 | 2,442 | 3,489 |
| 14″ | 13.124 | 135.28 | 843 | 1,265 | 2,108 | 2,951 | 4,216 |
| 16″ | 15.000 | 176.71 | 1,102 | 1,652 | 2,754 | 3,856 | 5,508 |
| 18″ | 16.876 | 223.68 | 1,394 | 2,092 | 3,486 | 4,880 | 6,972 |
| 20″ | 18.812 | 277.95 | 1,733 | 2,599 | 4,332 | 6,064 | 8,663 |
| 24″ | 22.624 | 402.00 | 2,506 | 3,759 | 6,265 | 8,771 | 12,530 |
Common bands: 2 to 4 ft/s on a pump suction, 5 to 8 ft/s on a discharge or transfer line, 10 ft/s and above only on short runs where noise, erosion and surge have been evaluated. Size the gravity overflow for the maximum credible fill rate with the outlet valve closed, and never smaller than the largest inlet — an undersized overflow turns a stuck fill valve into a structural event.
Five 2D reference details, drawn on a proper layer scheme with title blocks and general notes, generated in your browser as R12 ASCII DXF. That format opens natively in AutoCAD, BricsCAD, DraftSight, Civil 3D and MicroStation, and links or imports cleanly into Revit.
They are reference details, not shop drawings. Panel geometry, bolt patterns, sealant products and course thicknesses vary by manufacturer, and the foundation is always a project-specific design. Use these to communicate intent and to check what comes back.
Elevation and plan for a cylindrical bolted tank, drawn to the diameter and height you enter. Includes course lines, high water level, ring wall, grade, a four-nozzle arrangement with manway and roof vent, a caged ladder, dimension strings, and a capacity call-out block computed from your inputs. Drawn in feet (INSUNITS = 2).
Section through a ring wall and footing showing the grout bed, floor sheet, granular fill, sand cushion, vapor barrier, backfill, and the anchor bolt with its chair and hook. Twelve leader call-outs and the dimension strings a reviewer actually looks for.
Full-size section through a lapped panel joint: the bolt, the encapsulating cap, the sealant beads, and the coating films on both faces. The one detail worth putting on the drawings, because sealant continuity is where most bolted tanks actually leak.
An 8″ NPS Schedule 40 shell penetration with an ASME B16.5 flange, reinforcing pad, raised face, gasket and interior backing flange — the arrangement that keeps the lining continuous through the penetration instead of ending at it.
The perimeter condition for a clear-span aluminum geodesic cover: tension ring, base ring extrusion, batten bar and EPDM gasket, integral gutter, anchor clip, and the isolated stainless fastener that keeps aluminum from sitting on steel.
On Revit families and native DWG. Both are proprietary binary formats, and a family or block that is wrong is worse than none at all — it gets trusted. When you need an RFA or a DWG for a specific configuration, ask through the form at the bottom of this page and our engineers will build it against your actual tank, not a generic one. DXF is offered here because it is an open text format we can publish honestly and you can open in anything.
A specification only holds if the submittal process enforces it. These are blank, editable Word documents — put them in Division 01, attach them to the bid documents, or hand them to a contractor mid-project. Nothing here is branded in a way that would look strange in someone else’s project manual.
Cover sheet with a contents schedule, an explicit deviations table, and a contractor certification. The deviations table is the point: an approval does not authorize a deviation that was never disclosed.
Line-by-line comply / except / deviate response, plus a summary of excluded scope. The fastest way to find out why two apparently identical bids are eleven percent apart. Landscape format, ready to expand.
Ambient conditions, surface preparation, DFT per SSPC-PA 2, discontinuity testing per AMPP SP0188, and adhesion. A completed copy of this is the single most valuable document in a coating dispute five years later.
Foundation acceptance through material receipt, erection, bolt torque, hydrostatic test and disinfection. Includes the fill-rate and settlement-survey line items that get skipped and then argued about.
A nineteen-item index of what the owner should actually receive at substantial completion. Most of it costs nothing during construction and is unobtainable five years later — which is exactly when it is needed.
Ten-characteristic comparison against the basis of design, required attachments, and a signed certification. Issue it with the bid documents and an “or equal” claim has to be demonstrated rather than asserted.
Reference lists get copied forward from project to project until half of them no longer apply and the half that matter are missing. This is a working list of what belongs in a bolted steel tank section and what each entry is doing there.
| Standard | What it governs | Where it belongs in the section |
|---|---|---|
| AWWA D103 | Factory-coated bolted carbon steel tanks for water storage — design, materials, coating, and erection. | Part 1 references and Part 2 design basis. This is the governing document for a bolted water tank; cite it first. |
| AWWA D102 | Coating systems for steel water storage tanks. | Part 2 coating articles, where a field-applied liquid system is used. |
| AWWA D104 | Automatically controlled impressed-current cathodic protection. | Part 2 appurtenances and Part 3 commissioning, where CP is required. |
| AWWA D108 | Aluminum dome roofs for water storage tanks. | Part 2, wherever the dome cover is specified — in the tank section or its own. |
| AWWA C652 | Disinfection of water storage facilities. | Part 3 field quality control, with a clear statement of who reruns and pays for a failed sample. |
| NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 | Health effects of materials in contact with drinking water. | Part 2, applied to every wetted material — coating, sealant, gaskets, and fasteners, not just the coating. |
| NSF/ANSI/CAN 372 | Lead content of drinking water components. | Part 2, alongside NSF 61 for potable service. |
| ASCE 7 | Wind, seismic, snow and load combinations. | Part 1 design criteria. State the risk category, exposure, basic wind speed, SDS, SD1, and site class — do not make the bidder guess. |
| IBC | Adopted building code, including the anchorage and inspection provisions. | Part 1. Name the adopted edition and the AHJ. |
| API 650 | Welded steel tanks for oil storage. | Only where a welded tank is genuinely intended. Citing both API 650 and AWWA D103 in one section is a common and confusing copy-forward error. |
| AWS D1.1 | Structural welding, steel. | Part 2 fabrication and Part 3 field welding, where any welding is in scope. |
| ACI 301 / 318 | Structural concrete specifications and design. | The foundation section — but state the tank levelness and roundness tolerance in the tank section too, so both parties see it. |
| SSPC-SP 10 / NACE No. 2 | Near-white metal blast cleaning. | Part 3 surface preparation for immersion service. Name the profile range and the maximum hold time before coating. |
| SSPC-PA 2 | Measurement of dry film thickness with magnetic gauges. | Part 3 field quality control. Reference the procedure, not just a DFT number. |
| AMPP (NACE) SP0188 | Discontinuity (holiday) testing of protective coatings. | Part 3. Specify the method and voltage; a wet sponge and a spark tester are not interchangeable. |
| ASTM D4417 | Field measurement of surface profile. | Part 3 surface preparation acceptance. |
| ASTM D7091 | Nondestructive DFT measurement on ferrous and non-ferrous metal. | Part 3, paired with SSPC-PA 2 for gauge calibration. |
| ASTM D4541 | Pull-off adhesion strength. | Part 3, where adhesion testing is required. State the minimum value and who repairs the test locations. |
| ASTM B209 / B221 | Aluminum sheet, plate and extrusions. | Part 2, for dome covers and aluminum appurtenances. |
| ASME B16.5 | Pipe flanges and flanged fittings. | Part 2 nozzle schedule. Give the class as well as the size. |
Three short paragraphs that solve problems we see repeatedly on projects that were otherwise well specified. Copy them, edit them, and put your own name on them.
Basis of design. The design is based on a factory-coated bolted steel storage tank of [CAPACITY] gallons nominal, [DIAMETER] feet in diameter by [HEIGHT] feet of sidewall, designed and erected in accordance with AWWA D103. Alternate diameters within the range of [MIN] to [MAX] feet producing the specified nominal capacity are acceptable, provided the resulting foundation, piping and site arrangement are coordinated by the Contractor at no additional cost to the Owner. Products of other manufacturers will be considered under the substitution procedures of Division 01 and the substitution request form appended to this Section.
Wetted materials. All materials in contact with the stored water, including but not limited to the interior coating or lining, panel edge sealant, gaskets, fastener encapsulation, and any exposed fastener component, shall be certified to NSF/ANSI/CAN 61 for the intended contact surface area and water temperature, and to NSF/ANSI/CAN 372. Certification of the coating alone shall not be accepted as certification of the assembly. Submit the certification listing for each wetted material with the product data submittal.
Foundation interface. The tank manufacturer shall furnish, with the shop drawing submittal, the anchorage design loads, the required top-of-foundation levelness and roundness tolerances, and written acceptance of the foundation design. No tank steel shall be erected until the Contractor has submitted an as-built foundation survey demonstrating compliance with those tolerances and the tank manufacturer has accepted it in writing. Rework of the foundation required to achieve the manufacturer’s stated tolerances shall be performed at no additional cost to the Owner.
If you are writing a section and something on this page does not fit your project, tell us what you are trying to accomplish. There is no charge and no obligation, and we will tell you plainly when the right answer is a product we do not sell.
Prefer the phone? 330-265-1776 · Sales@TanksandCovers.com
An engineer will be in touch within one business day. If it is urgent, call 330-265-1776 and ask for the engineering group.