... Is there really anything else I need to say?
Yes, there is: If the passengers remain in or near a car with the back seat (plus other parts?) with such an intense fire that enough heat passes thru the wall dividing the rear seat area from the trunk area and continues long enough to cause overheating (non-uniformly also so pressure relief value fails to function) of the NG tank, and die, that would be blessing for the human race - kept some real idiots from reproducing. ...
I'm somewhat dubious of this claim.
I said it was surprising. Everyone educated even slightly about circle having the most contained area for the perimeter should be surprised, but I demonstate the claim IS TRUE mathematically.
Basically these ADJOINING square cross section tubes have larger contained area per unit mass used to make them because they share a common wall.* I.e. around the unity area square, each has only 3 not 4 flat walls of length 1. 3x1= 3 but around the unit diameter circle** the distance is 3.14, which is greater than 3.0 so more material is needed by the circular tank of dimeter 1 than by the ADJOINING squares of edge 1.
Not only that, there is obviously more interior area inside the squares (by the factor 4/3.14 = 1.2711 or more than 27% more contained area. when both the greater contained area and less material factors area considered,(and the one unique 4 sided square on one side of the flat panel tank is neglected) the contained volume to material ratio is better for the flat panel tank than the round tank by the factor (4/3.14)x 1.26 = 1.605 note I reduced 1.2711... to only 1.26 to estimate the effect of one of say >30 adjoining square cross section tubes having 4, not 3 sides.
However, the great attraction of the "flat panel" NG storage tank is not its 60% greater volume to mass ratio, but the fact it could be the car's floor and add only about an unnoticed inch to the floor's height. In a front wheel drive car, it could on average be approximately twice as long as the round tank placed sideways in the trunk (assuming the tubes run from front to back, instead of from side to side.) For more range, another could be in the car's roof, car's sides, etc. (with NG, unlike gasoline, the tank does not need to be below the fill point.)
SUMMARY:[/b] Amazingly the flat panel NG storage tank holds 60% more NG than the round one when both use the same amount of material, weight the same, and have the same bursting pressure limit.
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* Note also that the contained volume would double if only this "shared wall"were two units tall in stead of only one unit tall, but the thickness of it (and all the other walls would remain the same as the tension in no wall changes, wheh the cross section is a 2 to 1 rectangle instead of a square. Thus,
one can easily make the flat panel NG tank hold more than twice as much NG as a around tank of the same weight. !!!
**Some may think it unfair to compare a unit diameter round tube to a unit edge square tube, but is is not. True a round tube of 10 units diameter will hold 100 times more and have a circumference only 10 times more, but what people who raise this objection are forgetting is that the tension in the walls of the ten times large round tube is 10 times larger so the wall thickness must be 10 times larger too. The volume to requied mass of a round pressure tube does not depend on the diameter. Ten little one are just as efficient as one larger one - actually very slightly more efficient when the fact that their closing ends are more nearly flat is considered.
