Parts cleaner with Heptane ( Grounding ? )

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Davebones

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North Of Tampa Fl
We have test stand's ( 6ft x 6ft size ) where the operator does hydraulic testing on different air craft parts . The stand has a pump skid directly behind the stand in a pump room . The start/stop controls and 120 GFI outlet are on the test stand where the operator stands . They want to put some small parts washers next to the test stands . These will have have Heptane which is pretty flammable . The operator test stand is grounded with a ground wire coming from the pump skid in the back room with the control wiring . Would bonding these parts washers to the side of the test stands to ground them be acceptable ?
 
I'm not sure what you mean by ground it. Whatever power you are running to the parts washer has to have an equipment grounding conductor run with it. There's nothing that says that you can't run a bonding wire from the parts washer to the test stand. I don't know what good it will do. I suppose you are thinking it's a static prevention measure.

Static prevention is not part of the national electrical code.
 
Davebones said:
It's for static only . There's no power to the parts washer . Safety is questioning if we can ground ( Static ) the heptane tank like this .
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Is there a code that says how to bond things for static electricity control?

Personally I see nothing wrong with bonding the parts washer to the test stand.

I wish you would not call it grounding though.

I'm curious how safety came up with the idea that it needs to be "grounded" in the first place? Chances are it's sitting on a concrete floor that has rebar or mesh in it. You're not going to build up a whole lot of static electricity there.

What is it they think you should do? Does it involve drilling a hole in the floor and pounding a ground rod?

It does not seem likely to me that the parts washer would build up much of a static charge in any case. Unless it is all plastic and the solvent is run in plastic pipe or plastic lined pipe. As long as the parts washer itself is metal and the pipe feeding the heptane is metal chances are you're going to have a pretty good bond anyway. Running a piece of wire between the washer and the test stand will eliminate any chance whatsoever of having a difference in potential between those two pieces of equipment.
 
Safety department always refers to this as { tank needs to be grounded } . We ground "bond " the existing parts washers ( no electric ones ) thru out the plant to the building steel where they are located . There's no building steel close to these test stands . If this was located by itself with no ground point nearby we would install a driven ground rod for static . We actually have 55 gallon Heptane drums in a jet fuel testing area that have ground rods only attached to them .
 
Davebones said:
Safety department always refers to this as { tank needs to be grounded } . We ground "bond " the existing parts washers ( no electric ones ) thru out the plant to the building steel where they are located . There's no building steel close to these test stands . If this was located by itself with no ground point nearby we would install a driven ground rod for static . We actually have 55 gallon Heptane drums in a jet fuel testing area that have ground rods only attached to them .
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I think the chances are that any static build up is most likely to discharge between a human being touching both the parts washer and test stand at the same time, so bonding the two together makes more sense to me than bonding the parts washer to a ground rod or building steel, unless the test stand is also bonded to the same place.

But, it is also hard to argue with long standing practices.
 
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