I need someone to answer a question

WOODEN FLOORS???? Are you going to put the tank on wooden floors?

 

@mark d I'll give you 100% for enthusiasm and vision!

 

If I missed this I apologize, but how strong is your floor to hold this much weight?

Sounds cool though.

 

@Zoom,

What would you say would be a max safe weight for a standard residential floor to hold?

E.g. Would a 3m x .8m x .8m (+-2.5tons) be okay? (taking it that the actual stand will be built correctly)

 

Okay i cant sleep and thought i might try solve this equation

Assuming a standard residential floor is made of a concrete slab, i guess it all depends on thickness of the concrete and if there is any reinforcement in the floor slab. I have seen buildings with a 30mm slab with no reinforcement and if seen ones with 150mm... (i helped with structural reports for a civil company a few years back, but I'm no engineer!), but my feel is if its an old building or has poor workmanship rather check the thickness, if you are comfortable that the builder complied to building regulations and compacted the layer works correctly the concrete should be atleast 75mm thick at 10MPa (Source: SABS 400). Also MPa = N/mm2 so 10MPa = 10N/mm2

So if my mind is still working with me at this hour

1. Your stand is supporting a 3m x .8m x .8m tank with say 50mm steel all round at the bottom to distribute load, so that is approx 0.38m2 or 380000mm2 of contact on the floor.

2. The Tank is around 2.5t, but lets say 3t to be safe. Thus a 3000kg/29430Newton imposed load over that area is around 0.077447N/mm2 which seems to be less than the compressive strength of the concrete in a standard floor slab by a fair margin.

But i know i didn't take all the aspects (dead load, soil bearing capacity, etc, etc...) into account above so don't take my word for it, maybe consult someone that knows more about this type of thing or has a similar sized tank that could give you peace of mind.

Will have a chat to the guy i worked for if you don't come right.

L8a

 

Reps for Ko7Ad

 

I think @K07Ad has summed up correctly. I'm not an engineer- not by a long shot- but his maths made sense to me.

As he has also said, it is very dependent on the structure you resting on. You must bare in mind that according to NHBRC regulations (just for everyone's interest, IMO NHBRC is the biggest joke in south africa, and if you ever want to make millions- or BILLIONS in this case, form a company like this that get's legislated as a requirement in building!) the surface bed (ground floor slab) needs to be cast on compacted soil that has been compacted to 95% (it might be 98%) mod Ashto (whatever that means)... bust basically... compacted hard. The ground floor slab has to be a minimum of 85mm thick concrete of 15mPa strength... with ref100 mesh (all that means is it's a mesh that weigh 100grams for ever square meter- if memory has me correct) case within the concrete. You'd be surprized how strong this actually is.

In double story buildings you prop up the slab for a few weeks whilst the second floor slab concrete is curing. Obviously the props are designs and placed according to engineers specifications, with additional supports as requested, but I can tell you that the weight on one prop pushing down onto the surface bed is pretty intense.

I'm pretty convinced that 2.5 tons spread out correctly will be more fine on ground floor slabs, and even on second floor.

Even 5 tons should be fine... I doubt any engineer would be happy with it though, but it should hold... on condition the spread is done properly.

The main weakness comes in the steel tubing used. 2mm wall thickness wouldn't cut it. And I think an engineer would actually encourage you to build the cabinet out of bricks and concrete to hold that weight in any case.

Interesting thread this...

 

By freshwater do you mean bathwater? lol

I would love to have the money for one of these tanks, it would be awesome, but the thing is that the whole place will most probably have to be redone, floor wise, as Zoom stated, and here by us they are pretty mad with the building prices.

So if you have the $$ then by all means go for it, but I would be scared to sleep with that amount of water, glass and stand!!

 

Okay some feedback from my ex-boss (my brother,lol)

My calcs only tell half the story. The main area that will be the problem is the layer works, not the concreye slab itself as you could gather from my calcs. If we work on a bearing capacity of 100kN then the stand should require 300x300 baseplates on each leg (if there is 6) to disribute the load over a greater area.or 150x150 if using 10 legs.

Also the max load a 1.5m 50x50 square tube can take if stood upright is 87kN!!!! Thus the tubing is more then sufficient, its just a matter of bracing it correctly. And remember the shorter the lengh the more load it will be able to take...

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

 

Just a Suggestion, why not use I-beams they are much stronger. and tubing for bracing. and base plates.

o.ja. this project is not gonna work on wooden floors.

I like the knowledge that everyone is sharing on this forum. +1

 

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the info, Sorry for hijacking part of the thread.

I was curious to know as the largest I would ever go if I could afford would be approx 3m.

For now 1000L is all I can look at

So i guess that wont be a problem at all if built correctly!

 

Mark, please top wasting every ones time!! There is no way your dad will allow you to do that. He made you get rid of your 200L tank, because you could not maintain it. Wait until you have a place of your own, then start dreaming!!

 

Hey Xtreme Wife

You've gotta let a kid dream! Hey, if you look at the forums I joined 5 years ago you'd spurt coffee all over your keyboard if you saw what kind of things I was planning on doing!

Besides, dreams are the first step towards achieving. You never now where this could end up.

Beyond that, this thread has been taken very seriously so far. I like that. Why? Because it shows the planning that is essential towards making a MONSTER sized tank. It could be very useful to someone someday, even crucial to saving somebody's money if they didn't know what they were doing. I don't know about anyone else, but I've learned a lot on this thread

Regards

 

hahahaha, this kid can dream!!!, If I have to put all my dreams on here there will be no space for other members to post.

Marky, take it slow boet, but anyway, 15mm glass for that tank, tell your dad to start selling his wooden floors to pay for your setup.

 

Lol @xtreme not just wooden floors but my brother as well.

 

lol

Dreaming is good. Its what keeps us alive!

I saw a 2m x2m x1.2m tank for sale according to the owner worth R40 000, urgent sale, wanted R6000

4800L hmmm My aro would love that, problem is I dont think I would be able to even afford the costs to transport the tank let alone anything else