X-Message-Number: 2176
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 93 14:40:31 CDT
From: Brian Wowk <>
Subject: CRYONICS Ballast Containers

        I learned through my industrial alcohol inquiries that the 
deposit on a 50 gallon steel drum is $60.  This compares with the $7 
retail price of those collapsible polyethylene 5 gallon jugs we have 
been talking about.  This suggests that there would be no container 
cost savings in going from small plastic containers to larger metal 
ones.  There probably would be savings, though, in going to larger 
*plastic* containers.
 
        Perhaps 20 gallon cylindrical plastic pails are the best 
ballast containers.  The 160 lb weight should not be a concern since, 
as Mike Darwin points out, we will need an overhead hoist anyway.  We 
could put sheets of particle board (or some other cheap alternative) 
between layers of pails to evenly distribtute the weight of overlying 
layers.
 
        The weight of overlying layers, by the way, would be a real 
problem for the 5 gallon polyethylene jugs (thick bags, really).  The 
bottom containers would have to support 400 lbs (4 psi), and could not 
be prefrozen because of the low freezing point of alcohol/water.
 
        Another advatage of large, rigid pails is that we could stack 
them to make pillars at strategic locations.  In the spirit of Mike 
Darwin's suggestion for using ice as structural support, such pillars 
would protect patients against large heavy objects (like the building 
roof) falling on the Cold Room.  Taking the permanent alcohol/water 
ballast off the floor and making pillars out of it would also solve 
the vertical space problem that Michael Riskin caught me trying to 
bluff my way through.
 
                                                --- Brian Wowk   

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