Rivermuds Glass and Acrylic Calculator (it lives)

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Rivermud said:
I apologize that this is no longer in the sticky. i had a bad time for awhile and left mfk on bad terms that were of my own doing.. I'm back and even if i leave the calculator will stay.. this site is probably the biggest reason on the net for the calc in the first place.
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Welcome back. This site rocks. I understand what your saying. Sometimes "they" get to me also :-)
Looking forward to reviewing your threads. Im sure your not a fancy guppy keeper so we should get along fine.
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Egon said:
Welcome back. This site rocks. I understand what your saying. Sometimes "they" get to me also :-)
Looking forward to reviewing your threads. Im sure your not a fancy guppy keeper so we should get along fine.
Sent from my DROIDX using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
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Funny you should say that.. at one point i was a pretty serious fancy guppy breeder, had 25 tanks dedicated to it as a matter of fact. that was a long time ago though... hahah should have seen how overbuilt the stand was. At any rate, I will be resurrecting a few of my old threads in the near future as things have changed or will be changing soon. I am currently working with aquaponic filtration on my DIY "Test Tank" 100 gallon build that is posted here.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sheet calculates the thickness of glass or acrylic, with the assumption that that tank is ALL glass or acrylic.

Does anyone have a way to calculate the needed thickness for a window, supported by frame? I know that it's height dependent, but that's about it. I'd love to be able to check out the fact sheet for a product (i.e. Lexan Polycarbonate sheet) and be able to figure out how thick it needs to be to support a tank of various heights.
 
Desdinova said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sheet calculates the thickness of glass or acrylic, with the assumption that that tank is ALL glass or acrylic.

Does anyone have a way to calculate the needed thickness for a window, supported by frame? I know that it's height dependent, but that's about it. I'd love to be able to check out the fact sheet for a product (i.e. Lexan Polycarbonate sheet) and be able to figure out how thick it needs to be to support a tank of various heights.
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The Safety Factor field is set default to 3.8. you can adjust the safety factor of your build based on the support system you decide to use. Nobody can or should try to make a calculator for diy purposes because each build is different and there are too many variables to take into account. Now that i've said that, i will tell you that there are many build using a supported window with safety factors in the mid to high ones. My own tank has a fill depth of 22 inches and uses 1/4" glass, I have a SF of 1.3. I'm on the low end of SF ratings. A 55 gallon aquarium has a safety factor of 1.5 (That center brace means a lot)... hopefully with that knowledge and a little bit of research on your part you can choose the right thickness for your build.
 
How about tanks that span across 8 feet, or two windows across 16 feet? I know what the material's capacity to stand up to long runs is an issue, but I'm not sure how to figure that out. I talked to someone about a continuous 16' window and they were not sure that even a 1" thick sheet could hold up to that length at 2' height.

It seems logical that 1/2" cell-cast acrylic should be fine, up to about 2', in 8' sections, no matter how long the tank is (based on what I've seen so far). Would you agree?
 
The only issue with long spans are cross supports. As long as you have some sort of cross anchor you can build it as long as you want.. You really ought to use the tool.... if you plug in 16 feet (192 inches) and a 2 foot depth you'd see that an unsupported glass enclosure only requires .5" glass to have a safety factor of 3.8. Depth is the major contributing factor. Outward pressure is determined by the downward pressure of the atmosphere and water. The tool is designed to allow you to manipulate as many variables as possible to get the answer that best suits your needs, it even reverse calculates the safety factor for you.
 
Okay, I was nervous about it's accuracy on long runs, due to a conversation that I had with a guy from Tap Plastics. He was extremely concerned about the length of the sheet, even after I got done explaining the hydrostatic paradox and forward pressure calculations to him. It sounds like it's not so much of a factor.
 
Another thing I don't get is why the acrylic is thicker than the glass... I thought acrylic was several times stronger than glass and would therefore not need to be as thick. For a 196 x 48 x 24 tank, it says .51" glass or .79" acrylic... Is glass stronger?
 
acrylic is stronger yet softer. I used variables given to me from a manufacturer for the acrylic calculations. I didn't allow for variation in the calculation of acrylic for this reason alone.

Acrylic will bow and bend much more before breaking as compared to glass. Acrylic tanks are also almost always built with framing/supports. I don't have enough personal experience with acrylic to be comfortable offering any modifications or variables to the calculator and thus have left the calculations listed as they were given by the manufacturer.
 
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