Sorry to be pedantic, BUT....

What about toroidal (donut) tanks?  (OK, I suppose that is just a cylinder
twisted back onto itself)

And spherical tanks are theoretically the strongest....
(never seen a spherical one on a vehicle - wastes too much space.  Vacuum
accumulators are usually spherical though, made out of plastic (nylon?) to
avoid implosion - also hydraulic accumulators (usually pressurised nitrogen
with a diaphragm to keep the gas and fluid apart))

Back before we had natural gas here, and the "town" gas was, IIRC,
manufactured from coal, there were lots of BIG (50' +) spherical tanks
around.  One near a golf course had actually been painted to look like a
golf ball - pretty cool.

Andrew
'92 Syncro

----- Original Message -----
From: "Deborah Walters" <debbwa@EARTHLINK.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: must a propane tank be cylindrical?

> on 6/5/02 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor at
LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> wrote:
>
> > Must a propane tank be cylindrical to hold the gas safely?
>
>
> Just had this conversation with my Fire Chief Saturday after responding to
a
> fuel spill.  YES, tanks that hold pressurized gas must be cylindrical and
> have rounded (cupped) ends for strength - to keep the pressure from
busting
> out the sides of the tank.
>
> deb
> 85 Westy "Gypsy"
>