Industrial Gases & Cryogenic Systems worked example

Fill Plant Capacity at 99% expected fill plant uptime: a worked example

What does the result look like when expected fill plant uptime reaches 99%? The full calculation is worked below with real intermediate numbers. Use it when checking whether a gas fill plant can cover cylinder demand, dewar fills, bundle fills, or specialty gas batch requirements.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Cylinders or containers per fill cycle: 24 cylinders / cycle (unchanged)
  • Available fill cycles: 18 cycles (unchanged)
  • Expected fill plant uptime: 99 % (raised for this scenario; the documented default is 88)
  • First-pass release yield: 96 % (unchanged)

Working through the calculation

  • Applying the documented formula (Gross fill plant capacity = cylinders or containers per fill cycle × available fill cycles) to the inputs above produces each figure below.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 411 cylinders for good fill plant capacity, the number this scenario is built around.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 432 cylinders for gross fill plant capacity.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 4.32 cylinders for fill plant downtime loss.
  • At this operating point the engine returns 17.11 cylinders for first-pass release yield loss.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where expected fill plant uptime sits at 88% and the headline result is 365 cylinders, this scenario comes in 12.5% above the baseline at 411 cylinders.
  • A figure at this level is achievable when expected fill plant uptime is genuinely sustained, not just peaked for a shift. It assumes a fixed cylinders-per-cycle rack size; mixed cylinder sizes, gas changeovers, and purge-down losses between products aren't modeled and would reduce real output further.

Results at a glance

  • Good fill plant capacity: 411 cylinders (headline result)
  • Gross fill plant capacity: 432 cylinders
  • Fill plant downtime loss: 4.32 cylinders
  • First-pass release yield loss: 17.11 cylinders

Run it with your numbers

  • Every input above is editable in the live Fill Plant Capacity calculator, which recalculates instantly and can be shared with the inputs intact.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.