Mark, Drums in the United States are manufactured to meet UN specs for international transportation. If you look at the drum you are using it should have a series of numbers stamped into the bottom of the drum (or a sticker on the side) that reads something like "UN 1A1/X1.5/300" Which if you feed it into the government double speak decoder ring tells you that the drum is "1A1" - steel closed head drum, "X1.5" - used for liquids in packing groups I, II, or III (a rating of hazard) that have a specific gravity of 1.5 or less, and "300" - has a bursting strength of 300 kPa or as the government says "For single and composite packaging intended to contain liquids, the test pressure in kilopascals rounded down to the nearest 10 kPa of the hydrostatic pressure test that the packaging design type has successfully passed"
If you want some real good bedtime reading you could check out 49CFR178.503 which can be found at: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi? TITLE=49&PART=178&SECTION=503&YEAR=2002&TYPE=TEXT Hope this helps, Kevin R. --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, girl mark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi folks, > I'm having a devil of a time finding info about the bursting strength (?) > of closed head 55 gallon drums. I've been googling and keep finding these > government sites having to do with the state of New Jersey's requisition > form for windshield washer fluid and other Classic Literature of Bureacracy > and Red Tape instead of the actual specs. > > Here's the situation: > we got asked by someone in our host facility to put a pressure relief valve > on a closed processor that's made out of a 55-gallon drum. They're kind of > ignorant of what this equipment design entails and I think they are > somewhat unreasonably thinking up safety features- in reality, the sight > tube on the drum, and the type of lid we have on it (in our case it's not > exactly a tight head drum anymore- I cut off one end of it and fitted a lid > from an open head drum instead), would blow out before the drum would burst > (I think so, anyhow. Which isn't a good scenario anyway). But for > starters, I',m trying to find a spec on exactly what an 18 gauge steel > drum could tolerate if there were some kind of uncontrolled buildup of > pressure (er, an explosion). I could just throw a water heater pressure > relief on it and no one would know the difference, but I know that';s not > the right piece of equipment for the job, being in the public eye (and > trying to make homebrewer equipment comply with inspectors). > > Mark Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
