Is there an engineer in the house?

I've been assembling various and sundry pieces and parts for my single tier brewstand. I'd buy it all at once but Im counting on individual purchases passing below the radar of the household ways & means committee.

That being said, one of the bigger purchases is the metal for the stand itself. Im going with 304 square stainless tubing. Many of the stands I've seen use 10 guage 2"x2" (approx 1/8"). My local metal shop charges about $15 / foot for this stuff. Im thinking it might be overkill.

My question is simple: what is the appropriate size tubing for this job? My weight assumptions are:

wort/water: 9 lbs / gallon
kegs : 30 lbs
fitting: 40 lbs

If the kegs are filled to capactity we're looking at 420 lbs so let's add another 35 for grain the grand total is 578 lbs. Add 10% for safe measure and we right around 620 lbs. My highly technical drawing is below:



Couple of good reads:

Deflection Study
Hollow Structural Sections Dimensions and Section
[URL="http://www.calculatoredge.com/civil%20engg%20calculator/beam.htm#hollow"]Deflection Calculator

which cover tubing strengths. I cant see where 1.25" sq tubing w/ 11 guage wall thickness wouldnt be more than enough. Thoughts?


Edit: added link to deflection calc.

An engineer that's ALSO a home brewer? Good luck with that! :cross:

Over-engineering a project? Where is the thrill?

your question depends entirely on the actual construction of the stand. there are situations where a stand made from 2" square stainless tubing would collapse, but a stand made from less robust individual materials, but assembled better, would hold a truck.

I cant see where 1.25" sq tubing w/ 11 guage wall thickness wouldnt be more than enough.

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that is probably more than enough, if properly assembled (with supports/braces where needed; welded or securely fastened...).

As a thumb suck based on your sketch I'd say no problems.
By the way there are a few of us engineers on here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/whats-your-occupation-engineer-non-engineer-135492/
If you were worried just cut 2 more verticles and have 2 centre supports on each long side.

If you need to do this on the cheap I'd look on craigslist for free bed-frames and weld those together, plenty strong (but somewhat hard to work with).

They are only hard to work with if you do not get person out of bed. Paint should be ground off in weld areas!! I use 6011 electrodes!

2" square @ 1/8" wall is overkill in any situation under 50 gallon vessels.

I'm not an engineer, but I am a mechanical designer with a structural background.
2x2x1/8 is definitely overkill.
You can get away with 1.25x1.25x11 ga.

I'm tempted to model it up & do FEA, but I don't have that kind of time.

i used 1x1x1/8 angle iron (which is 1/2 of tube) and it holds up great, even with a full 10gal HLT, full MLT, and 12gal BK. I do have some vertical flat bar but it's going to be significantly cheaper if you went smaller.

1x1x1/8 of angle iron is almost the same weight (per foot) of 1x1x16ga tube.

Down here 1 1/2 sqare 16gauge is like 4 bucks a foot. Alot cheaper and would give you a plenty strong frame

ebstauffer said:

I'd buy it all at once but Im counting on individual purchases passing below the radar of the household ways & means committee.

Click to expand...

Lol I cant stop laughing at this because its so true in my household as well.
SWMBO: Are you sure that brewing is cheaper than buying your own?
Me: Yes sweetie! We save tons of money!!!!

I got a quite a nice pile of tube stock I took from the scrap pile at work. And there is a metal recycling place down the road that often has some standard sizes laying around.

Maybe you should see if you have a scarp yard to save some $$. The local place once had 2x4x1/8 from a surplus transaction. That scrapyard is like a box of chocolates </ForrestGump>