Mr Cracker2u;849124; said:
Looks like you have some excelent framers helping you on this. Did you have it enengiered or did they just bring the Simpson Strong Tie book to you and let you order the hardwear???
This is a Do-It-Yourself aquarium from start to finish. I am retired with no formal training in engineering or design. I did a lot of reading and created a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel with a lookup table for various sized wood beam load capacities, which I downloaded from the web.
I figured a 6-foot tall column of water, six cubic feet, weighs approximately 374 pounds (water weighs about 62.4 pounds per cubic foot) and multiplied that times the length of the aquarium, 16 feet, to get a load of 16 times 374 or 5,990 pounds. A good quality 2 by 8 should support 391 pounds per inch of web thickness over a 16 foot span according to the beam load tables, therefore figure a 2 by 8 which is really 1.5 by 7.25 and you get something like 391 pounds times 1.5 or 586 pounds total live load capacity. A live load is temporary and although the beam might carry the load over time, it stresses the beam to the point where it could give way. Beam load tables also display or offer formulas for dead or static load capacities for any given beam.
I calculated five 2 by 8 beams 16 feet long across the top, which should support 391 pounds per inch. Five beams at 1.5 each = 7.5 of web thickness times 391 = 2,933 pounds of live load capability. I come up short 3,057 pounds of capacity, the weight of water 5,760 less 2,933 live load capacity.
This aquarium wall of water is a static or dead load, which, my tables show at 25% the live load capacity; therefore, my aquarium wall must support a theoretical load of 23,962 pounds.
The answer to this dilemma and my other calculations will appear in the Articles section on the Monster Fish Keepers site soon and I will post a notification in this thread when it is ready The picture below shows how I doubled the capacity of my window wall support..
.
