will a full oil drum float

[adamanderr]

will a full oil drum float how about one filled with gasoline.

[jehardiman]

Assuming a "normal" 55 gal drum; for heavy oil, it depends on the API gravity and temperature, for gas, it will always float.

[Verytricky]

Petrol is about 0.78kg per litre, Water is about 1.0 Kg per litre. How thick is the oil drum metal?

[Raggi_Thor]

225 liters x 0.22kg/l = more than 40kg.
I don't think an epty drum is more than 40kg (80 pounds).

[adamanderr]

so let me get it straight. it will or won't. how about veggie oil.
thanks

[ted655]

Short answer is yes. Not like a buoy but like a water hazard or WW2 mine.

[Raggi_Thor]

55 gallons is like 200 liters?
So if you know the density of you oil and the weight of the barrel, it will float if the total weight is less than 200kg.

[Poida]

Raggi_Thor 55 gallons is like 200 liters?
So if you know the density of you oil and the weight of the barrel, it will float if the total weight is less than 200kg.

Raggi Archimedes

I'm wondering why you would want to know this Adamanderr. Are you going to tender for transporting 2 million gallons of oil from the Middle East to Holland, you don't have a ship big enough so you are thinking of towing them.
Or, you want to travel around the World and your fuel tank is not big enough so you are going to tow a 100 or so drums of fuel behind you. A terrorist plot to tow 100 drums of gasolene to a target and explode them?

[timgoz]

55 gallon drums of diesel float. I know this for a fact, as this is how we got them asshore for a remote fuel cache on the N. Labrador Coast.

TGoz

[yipster]

in "from russia with love" james bond must have known oil drifts on water

[stonebreaker]

Actually, the Trieste used gasoline as a buoyancy material because if its incompressibility.

[Richard Hillsid]

grmph, when is a drum full, filed to the brink or just filled to the level.

[Trevlyns]

Not wishing to state the bleeding obvious.. If it's only an oil drum, why not just shove it in some water and see?

[Poida]

Because Trevlyns me mate, it will weigh near on 200kgs and you will need some water large enough to float it so a river, lake ,ocean etc.

You might be an olympic weight lifter but the normal person would have no way of getting a 200kg drum across a beach into the water.

What if it didn't float, you would then have 200 kgs of oil stuck on the bed of a river.

The bleeding obvious would be to accertain the specific gravity of oil, ring up a drum supplier to get the weight of a drum add the two. If it is lighter than the specific gravity of water and drum if floats if it's equal we have neutral boyancy and if it's greater it sinks.

[timgoz]

If the beach is not extremely steep, rolling a full drum of oil, up or down, will not be a problem. Use two people if the incline is gentle adding more as the incline steepens. You do not want it getting away from you, especially if rocks, ect... are around.

Three of us were able to roll full drums up through steep jagged shore rocks by using several stout planks. Leapfrogged 2 by 2 as the drum cleared them, the planks worked fine.

Wipe the drum clean and lay it on its side with the capped hole down to check for leaks before floating it. Many places will nail you for Any visible oil, which along with other pollutants, we certainly have enough of in the water.

Take care.

TGoz