Some Technical Info About Our Bolted Time Capsules

Technical Info About Our Bolted Time Capsules

Wall Thickness of Stainless Steel

We're sometimes asked about the wall thickness of our stainless steel boxes. They're made by hand using 304 stainless steel that's .075" thick. To some folks, this just doesn't seem thick enough. Those folks may be thinking of aluminum - a much softer metal and therefore it must be thicker. Please don't compare these two metals. They may also be thinking of the composite material some of our competitors are using. This also must be of a thicker material. For how some of our competitors' capsules seal, and why we don't agree with the way they do it, we'll leave that to a future post.

Today we'll talk about thickness.

Bolted Time Capsule 3000

We offer the following additional technical information as it applies to the 14x14x24" bolted size, but it also applies to other size units, because the principle remains the same.

"In answer to why we make our wall thicknesses .075" and not .25" thickness of 304 stainless steel: A time capsule buried in dry soil will not experience an even pressure distribution, as it would if it were suspended in a liquid or a gas. With the capsule oriented vertically, the primary loads would be exerted on the top and bottom. Side loads would be insignificant, unless the soil were to become saturated with water and unstable. I assume you are not putting it in that kind of an environment. Our 14x14x24" bolted time capsule can withstand loads in excess of 200 lbs distributed over each of the 14x24" sides without significant deflection. In addition, it can sustain a vertical load well in excess of 10,000 lbs distributed over the top surface."

Not A Vault

Our customers will note that most of our time capsules are less than 16x16x30" in size. Larger than this, we consider to be a vault and not a capsule. We do not presume our calculations to cover vault containers.