gallons of fuel oil vs depth in tank

So at 48 inches you have 550 gallons. 4x12 = 48. That works out to 11.5 gallon per inch. 550/48.

Sound reasonable?

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Jim

The diameter must be just under five feet.

No. It would for a straight sided tank, even a cylinder if it was vertically oriented, however, these tanks are all horizontal, so the gallons/inch varies.

resonably acccurate if the six foot dimension is vertical and the ends are fairly 'flat'. If tank is horizontal, gallons per inch varies from zero at the bottom to a max in the middle and then back to zero at the top of the tank. But I'm sure you knew that, MP, and gave the OP a good answer to his [incomplete?] statement of the problem. Of course if all heating oil tanks are vertical with flat ends, your answer was Right On.

the six foot dimension is horizontal.

Your Oil Distributor should be able to fix you up with a trip to their office "get a chart or a copy of one"..also remember the measure will only be correct if the tank lys level..but will be close.

It wouldn't be a linear relationship since the tank is cylindrical.

I remember this being an example problem in high school calculus.

Easy. Measure the depth of oil in inches. Multiply by 11.458 to get the number of gallons.

From the numbers given in 1, 2 and 3, the number of gallons and depth is linear. That's sounds like vertical sides.

It is linear if only those 3 points were ever considered. All other possible sample points could never be linear because the poster said he had a cylindrical tank.

That constant would only be valid for a straight sided tank. Since the tank is a cylinder there will be different areas and thus different volumes at each sample point.

The OP said is a 4 foot round cylinder, by 6 feet, and that it holds 550 gallons. He then says when the level measures 4 feet it has 550 gallons.

Obviously the 4 foot measure is vertical, and the depth is clearly *not* linear. With only measurements at full, empty and half, the values given are correct for a

Yeah you could do the math. Simple way: draw a circle on a piece of graph paper. Count the squares inside the circle and ratio to your numbers. Assume this should be close enough for your application.

You didn't do very much googling. This is the #1 result.

If, as you say, it is a cylinder that is 4 feet across and 6 foot deep, the formula goes something like this:

Volume in c.f. = 3.14*2^2*6 cf=75.36

So, your sizing is about right.

Reversing the equation:

Knowing that, a cylinder is linear, so:

So, at 16" there 125.76 gallons.

If however, the tank isn't really cylindrical, then you're pretty well screwed because the math gets a lot harder. It would take a bit to figure the formula, but you could assume the tank to different shape and you could easily approximate it, say be dividing it into 10 horizontal slices and calculating the volume of each slice.

That doesn't answer the question.

That doesn't answer the question.

This one does.