JPH02219799A - Oil feeding control equipment for oil station - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to perform a pump up work under a condition where an oil quantity is small by a method wherein when a liquid level which is detected by a level indicator is at a prescribed value or more, the valve for an oil feeding system is closed by a oil feeding prohibiting device. CONSTITUTION:An oil feeding port 15 is a part in which an oil feeding hose of a tank lorry is inserted, and the tip of an oil feeding pipe 17 is located in an underground tank 1, and an oil is introduced to the underground tank 1. An output signal S1a of an level indicator is read, and a water quantity is detected. Then, if the water quantity in the underground tank 1 stays within an allowance or not is decided. This decision is made by comparing the water quantity, which was decided at a step SPa2, with the allowance which is stored in a memory unit 7. When this decision is 'YES', it is not required to perform a pump up treatment. On the contrary, when the decision at a step SPa3 is 'NO', the process is advanced to a step SPa4, and a solenoid valve 16 is closed. A driver of the tank lorry finds out that an oil feeding is prohibited, and the oil feeding treatment is not performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION "Field of Industrial Application" The present invention relates to a fuel filling control device for a gas station that can improve the efficiency of draining water from an underground tank at a gas station.

"Prior Art" Generally, at a gas station, fuel is pumped up from an underground tank, and a tank is used to supply fuel to vehicles and the like. When the amount of oil in underground tanks becomes low, the underground tanks are filled (unloaded) from tank trucks.

By the way, rainwater, groundwater, etc. may get mixed into the underground tanks of gas stations, so the water must be drained at an appropriate time to eliminate the negative effects of water mixing.

In a conventional gas station, as shown in FIG. 8, a liquid level gauge 2 is installed in an underground tank 1 to detect water. The amount of water detected by the liquid level gauge 2 is displayed on a display section of a control panel 3 installed in an office on the ground. Then, the time to pump water was determined by checking the displayed value on the control panel 3.

"Problem to be Solved by the Invention" By the way, when carrying out the work of pumping out water, it is preferable to carry out the work when there is little stock of water. This is because when the amount of oil is large, workability deteriorates and the accuracy of measuring the pumped amount deteriorates.

However, at conventional gas stations, there are no restrictions on oil filling from tank trucks, so once oil is filled, there is a situation where water has to be pumped out with a large amount of oil. It was happening.

This invention was made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and it is possible to prohibit lubrication when water needs to be pumped out, thereby making it possible to carry out pumping work with a small amount of oil. The purpose is to provide a lubrication control device for the location.

"Means for Solving the Problems" In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a liquid level gauge for detecting the amount of water in an underground tank, and an allowable value storage means for storing an allowable value for the amount of water in the underground tank. When the start of lubricating the underground tank is instructed, the detected value of the liquid level gauge is compared with the allowable value in the allowable value storage means, and if the detected value exceeds the allowable value, The apparatus includes a lubrication prohibiting means for closing a lubrication system valve to prohibit lubrication.

``Effect'' When the liquid level detected by the liquid level meter is above a predetermined value,
The lubrication system valve is closed by the lubrication prohibition means. Therefore, when the water in the tank reaches a state where it is necessary to pump out the water, subsequent oil filling is prohibited and the amount of oil does not increase.

"Embodiments" Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the same reference numerals are given to the parts corresponding to the parts shown in FIG. 8 described above, and the explanation thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 1, the control unit 5 is composed of a CPU, an I10 interface, a program memory, etc.
Each part of the device is controlled based on signals S1a and Slb supplied from the liquid level gauge 2.

Here, the signal Sla is a signal indicating the level of water accumulated at the bottom of the underground tank 1, and the signal Slb is a signal indicating the level of oil. In this case, the liquid level gauge 2 is composed of a water level detecting section 2a, an oil level detecting section 2b, and an insulating section 2C that partitions them.The water level detecting section 2a outputs a signal Sla, and the oil level A signal Slb is output from the detection section 2b. The water level detection unit 2a and the oil level detection unit 2b are two cylindrical conductors with different diameters arranged with a common axis, and liquid can freely flow between the outer cylindrical conductor and the inner cylindrical conductor. Holes are provided in predetermined areas to allow for entry. The liquid that entered through the hole changes the capacitance between the outer cylindrical conductor and the inner cylindrical conductor, and by detecting this capacitance change, the position of the water surface and oil surface is detected. There is. Detection of capacitance is performed, for example, as follows. First, a high frequency oscillation circuit is constructed in the control section 5, and a time constant circuit of this oscillation circuit is constructed using the capacitance of the water surface detection section 2a and the oil level detection section 2b. and,
Changes in capacitance of the water surface detecting section 2a and oil level detecting section 2b due to changes in the liquid level are converted into changes in the oscillation frequency, and the water surface position is thereby measured. Note that Japanese Patent Publication No. 60-35614 is known as a liquid level measuring device based on the above-mentioned principle.

Next, the operation section 6 is used to input various commands and data to the control section 5, and is composed of a keyboard, a display, and the like. Storage unit 7 is backed up RAM
The working area of the control section 7 is set.

Further, in the storage unit 7, an allowable amount of water in the underground tank 1 is preset. The display section 8 is constituted by a CRT display device, a liquid crystal display panel, or the like, and is adapted to display processing results etc. in the control section 5. Note that the control section 5, operation section 6, storage section 7, and display section 8 are as follows:
It is located inside the office of the gas station.

Next, the external operating device 10 is operated by the driver of the tank truck when refueling (unloading), and is a support erected at a predetermined position on the floor of the gas station near the refueling port 15, which will be described later. placed on the body.

This external operating device 10 includes a display section 11 for displaying various messages, a keyboard l2 for performing operations, and a speaker 13 for emitting a warning to the operator. The display and sound of the display section 11 and the speaker 13 are each controlled by the control section 5, and signals input from the keyboard 12 are supplied to the control section 5.

The oil filler port 15 is a portion into which the oil filler hose of the tank truck is inserted, and communicates with the oil filler pipe 17 .

The tip of the oil supply pipe 17 is located within the underground tank 1, and is adapted to lead the supplied oil to the underground tank 1. This oil supply pipe 17 is provided with an electromagnetic valve 18, and when this electromagnetic valve 18 is in a closed state, oil supply is cut off. Furthermore, the opening and closing of the electromagnetic valve 18 is controlled by the control section 5.

Next, the operation of the embodiment with the above-described configuration will be explained. Note that since the operation of this embodiment is largely divided into a lubrication control operation and a leakage/outflow detection operation, the former will be explained first.

(2) Lubricating control operation When lubricating, a subroutine shown in FIG. 2 is activated. First, in step S'P a 1, it is determined whether the unloading key has been pressed. The unloading key is a 0 key provided on the keyboard 12, and is a key that a tank truck driver presses when lubricating (unloading). In step 5Pal, the loop f21 is circulated until the determination becomes rYESJ. When the determination in step 5Pal becomes rYEsj, the process moves to step 5Pa2, and the amount of water in the tank to be lubricated (unloaded) is read. That is, the output signal Sla of the liquid level gauge 2 is read and the amount of water is determined. Then, the process proceeds to step 5Pa3, where it is determined whether the amount of water in the underground tank 1 is within a permissible value. This determination is made by comparing the amount of water determined in step 5Pa2 with the allowable value stored in the storage unit 7. If this determination is rYEsJ, that is, if it is within the allowable value, there is no need to perform pumping processing, and the process proceeds to the next step (path shown) to perform other processing. On the other hand, if the determination in step 5Pa3 is rNOj, step 5Pa
4, the electromagnetic valve 16 is closed and an alarm message is generated from the speaker 13. The warning message is, for example, an audio guidance that lubrication is prohibited, or a warning using a buzzer. When the warning message is issued by the processing in step 5Pa4, the tank truck driver knows that lubrication is prohibited and does not carry out the lubrication process. Furthermore, even if the lubricating process is performed by mistake, mla
Since the valve 17 is closed, ura is not supplied into the underground tank 1.

After that, step 5P continues until the water is pumped out.
Since the determination of a3 is always rNOJ, lubrication is never performed. Therefore, until the pumping process is performed, the oil amount is maintained as it is, or the oil is discharged by the oil supply device (the illustrated path), and the oil amount decreases. Therefore, the water pumping operation can always be carried out in a state where the amount of oil is small.

In addition, in the above-mentioned control, when the amount of water in the underground tank 15 was larger than the allowable value in step 5Pa3, the solenoid valve 16 was configured to be closed in step 5Pa4. It may be configured such that the valve is always kept in a closed state in advance and opened only when the amount of water in the underground tank 1 is within a permissible value in step 5Pa3.

■Leak/inflow detection operation Next, the leak/outflow detection operation will be explained.

Since oil may leak out to the outside due to corrosion of the underground tank 1, it is necessary to detect this.

Conventional leak detection is performed in underground tanks, as shown in Figure 9.
This was done by a sensor SE1 dedicated to leakage detection buried near the. That is, when oil flows out from the underground tank 1, a part of the oil flows out into gas, and this gas is detected by the sensor SEI. And sensor S
The EI detection signal activated the QiAR alarm, which alerted staff to the leak.

However, if there is an oil spill at a location far from the sensor SEI, the vaporized components of the spilled oil will reach the sensor SEI.
was not detected, and therefore no warning was issued. Furthermore, since the sensor SEI is buried, there is a problem that it is easily deteriorated.

Therefore, in this embodiment, in order to solve the above problem, oil leakage is reliably detected by the operation described below, and deterioration of the sensor is also prevented. Additionally, it is also possible to detect the inflow of water, which was impossible with conventional detection methods.

This operation is performed by the subroutine shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b).

First, the subroutine shown in FIG. 3(a) is started when the gas station is closed, and when the closing check key is pressed in step 5Pbl, a signal S1 from the level gauge 2 is received (step 5Pb2).

The store closing check key is a key provided on the operation unit 6 shown in FIG. 1, and is operated when the store is closed. next,
The remaining amount of oil is detected from the signal Slb, and this remaining amount is stored in the storage section 7.
(Step 5Pb3). My memory of this time is
For example, this is done according to the format shown in FIG. 4(a). The tank numbers shown in this diagram indicate that the underground tank is
This is a number to identify if there are several. The remaining amount of each tank is then stored in the portion corresponding to each number. After the process of step S Pb3, the process moves to step S5Pb4, where the power to the entire apparatus is turned off and the closing process is completed.

Next, when the power is turned on when the store opens the next day, the third
The subroutine shown in Figure (b) is activated. In this subroutine, when the store opening check key is pressed (
Step 5Pcl), proceed to step 5Pc2. The store opening check is a key that is provided on the operation unit 6 and is pressed when the store is opened. And step 5Pc2
, the signal Slb from the liquid level gauge 2 is read, and the remaining amount of music in the underground tank l is detected from this signal Slb. Next, the process moves to step 5Pc3, and the remaining amount at the time of closing is read from the storage section 7. Then, in step 5Pc4, the remaining amount detected in step 5Pc2 and step 5Pc3 are
Compare the remaining amount read with the underground tank with the same number. If the remaining amount of the former is Mc and the remaining amount of the latter is MO, then Mc L=IM.

In this case, that is, if the difference between Mc and Mo is less than the allowable value, it is determined that there is no abnormality. This is because if there is no leakage or water contamination, the remaining amount will not change. Here, the allowable value is stored in advance in the storage unit 7. Further, since the size of the allowable value varies depending on the measurement accuracy of the liquid level gauge 2, the size of the underground tank, or the type of oil, an appropriate value is set as appropriate. Here, in Figure 4 (
b) is the format of the allowable value stored in the storage unit 7, and as shown in the figure, each allowable value is stored in correspondence with each tank number.

If it is determined in step 5Pc4 that there is no abnormality, the process proceeds to step 5Pc6, where the display section 8 displays "no abnormality".

On the other hand, if M o > MC, that is, if the remaining amount is increasing, it is determined that water has mixed in, and step 5P is performed.
Proceeding to step c5, a groundwater contamination warning is displayed on the display section 8.

If M o < M c, that is, if the remaining amount is decreasing, this means that the ura in the underground tank l is leaking, so the process moves to step 5Pc7, and a spill warning is displayed on the display unit 8. do.

With the above processing, it is possible to know whether there is oil leakage or water contamination by looking at the display content on the display unit 8 when the store is opened.

In the above embodiment, the power on/off key, the leakage check key, etc. can also have the same function as the closing check key.

Next, a modification of the above embodiment will be described.

This modification is an example in which, when there are a plurality of underground tanks, lubrication control for each underground tank is performed and mistakes in the type of oil during lubrication work are prevented.

The reason why oil types are prevented in this modification is as follows.

First, a conventional Ah supply station having 11 underground tanks is configured as shown in FIG. 10, for example. In this figure, l-1, l-2, . . . are underground tank tanks, each storing a specific type of oil (eg, gasoline, diesel oil, etc.). The control circuit 50 stores in advance the relationship between underground tank numbers and oil types.

At the time of unloading, a password is input from the cowboard 12 of the external operating device 10, and then the oil type and underground tank number are input in sequence.

That is, step 5 of the flowchart shown in FIG.
When the password is entered manually in Pdl, the control circuit 50 determines whether the manually entered password is correct in step 5Pd2. If this determination is rYEsj, the oil type is input in step 5Pd3,
Next, in step 5Pd4, an underground tank number is input. Then, the control circuit 50 performs step 5P.
In d4, it is determined whether the relationship between the manually entered oil type and the underground tank number matches a pre-stored relationship. If this determination is lN0J, an error message is displayed on the display unit 11 of the external operation device 10, and the
The operator inputs the type of oil manually and the underground tank number (steps 5Pd3 and 5Pd4).

On the other hand, if the determination in step 5Pd5 is rYEsJ,
Proceed to the next process. This process displays an operation message indicating the operation of the unloading cow on the display unit 11 of the external operating device 10 in order to perform the same lubrication control operation as shown in steps 5Pal to 5Pa4 of the above embodiment for the tank concerned. Display.

However, in the device having the above configuration, if the tank truck driver misunderstands the type of oil in the first place, it is impossible to prevent R'td+. Therefore, in this modification, it is possible to prevent oil mixture even in such a case.

FIG. 5 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of this modification. In this figure, parts that have one-to-one correspondence or one-to-many correspondence with the respective parts in FIG.

The interphon 14 shown in the figure is attached to the external operating device 10, and can communicate with an interphon 24 in the office via the control section 5. Also,
Information entered manually from the keyboard 12 of the external operating device 10 is displayed in real time on the display section 8 via the control section 5. The solenoid valves 16-1 and 18-2 are controlled by the control unit 5 as in the embodiment shown in FIG.
The opening/closing is controlled automatically by the control, and the opening/closing is controlled according to the operation of the operating section 6 by the staff member.

Next, the oil type confirmation work at the time of unloading will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, the tank truck driver operates the key fob 12 of the external operating device 10 to enter a password manually (Step 5Pel). Since this password is displayed on the display unit 8 via the control unit 5 shown in FIG. 5, the staff in the office can judge whether it is correct or not from the display content on the display unit 8 ( Step 5Pe2). If the correct password is input, the oil type and oil amount are input from the external operating device 10 (steps 5Pe3 and 5Pe4).

Since these human power data are displayed in real time on the display section 8, the staff member checks the displayed contents in the same manner as described above (step 5Pe5). When checking this, please check the Interfon 2
4 and 14, reconfirm with the office staff, tank truck driver, etc. If the type of oil is incorrect, the staff member operates the operating unit 6 to select the solenoid valve of the corresponding underground tank 2-1, 2-2...
6-1. 16 to 2... are closed or kept closed, and an error signal is sent to the external operating device 10, and an error message is displayed on the display unit 11. Then, after the above processing, the oil type and urayo are inputted again (steps 5Pe3 and 5Pe4).

In this way, if the oil type is incorrect, please refer to Note 1f11 χ
- Since the electromagnetic valve of the underground tank is closed, even if the tank truck driver misunderstands the type of oil, it is possible to prevent oil from mixing.

In addition, as a method of confirming the 4I type, one load is stored in the storage unit 7 in advance.
The staff operates the operation unit 6 to memorize the oil type and 4h scheduled for 11th, and then manually inputs the 4h oil type from the external operating device 10.
It may also be possible to have the control unit 5 automatically check whether the seeds and the amount of oil match the stored contents.

Furthermore, as a method of confirming the oil type, when placing an order with an oil depot, the oil type and the slip number (order number etc. are also acceptable) are stored in the storage unit 7 in advance, and this stored content and the external operating device 1
The control unit 5 may also automatically check the oil type and slip number (or order number, etc.) input from 0. A flowchart of the operation in this case is shown in FIG. The order of processing in this figure is the same as the process shown in Fig. 6, and the step numbers in the figure are
These correspond to the step numbers in the figure.

"Effects of the Invention" As explained above, according to the present invention, there is provided a liquid level gauge for detecting the amount of water in an underground tank, an allowable value storage means for storing an allowable value for the amount of water in the underground tank, and a When the start of lubricating the tank is instructed, the detected value of the liquid level gauge is compared with the allowable value in the allowable value storage means, and if the detected value exceeds the allowable value, the lubricating system valve is Since it is equipped with a lubrication prohibition means that closes and prohibits lubrication, when it is necessary to pump out water, lubrication can be prohibited, thereby making it possible to carry out pumping work with a small amount of oil. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention;
Fig. 2 is a flowchart showing the lubrication control operation of the same embodiment, Fig. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the same embodiment, and Fig. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the same embodiment.
5 is a conceptual diagram showing the storage format of the storage unit 7 in the same embodiment, FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a modification of the same embodiment, FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the modification, and FIG. is a flowchart 1 showing another operation example of the same modification.
・, Figure 8 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of a conventional water surface detection device at a gas filling station, Figure 9 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of a conventional leakage detection device, and Figure 10 is an underground tank? FIG. 11 is a schematic configuration diagram showing the configuration of a conventional gas station in the case where there is a number of St. Note Mx t! FIG. 1.1-1.1-2... Underground tank, 2...
...Liquid level gauge, 5...Control unit (lubricating prohibition means),
700 million copies (tolerance storage means), 16.16-1,162.
...Solenoid valve (means to prohibit lubrication). ...S self figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] a liquid level gauge for detecting the amount of water in the underground tank; a tolerance storage means for storing an acceptable value for the amount of water in the underground tank; and a detection value of the liquid level gauge when instructed to start filling the underground tank and an allowable value in the allowable value storage means, and when the detected value exceeds the allowable value, a lubricating system valve is closed to prohibit lubricating. Lubricating control device for gas stations.