For TST's Engineers

[Patch]

Just for fun here, because I don't have an answer, because I am too lazy to figure it out. 

I just donated enough golf balls that pretty much filled up two, 100 gallon barrels, to a local driving range. The number "100 gal." was stenciled on the barrels, so I am just assuming. There was about an inch cut off the top of the barrels. 

So how many balls would fill up those two barrels?

It was either donate them to the golf course, or put them in the local land fill. The resident pro says I can have a bucket of balls anytime I want. Just need to see him. Told him I might buy a few lessons myself as thanks for taking the balls off my hands. My storage room is now empty. 

[DaveP043]

Ballpark guestimate about 12,000 balls.  I can't say I've seen 100 gal barrels, most that I see are 55 gal.  Even so, thats a whole lot of golf balls.  Can I ask, how did you load and transport those barrels?  

[TourSpoon]

So...you gave him "Both Barrels" and he gives you range privileges. Nice! 

[BamaWade]

I'm not an engineer.  But I'd estimate that you're talking over 15,500 balls.

I arrive at that via:

There are 23,100 cubic inches in 100 us liquid gallons.  A golf ball is 2.5 cubic inches.  That gives 9,240 units per 100 gallons - but I'm lopping off ~10% of the volume for space (not dealing with liquid) - giving me ~8,200 per barrel, then a little more for the top of the barrel being cut, giving us 15,500+.

I always lose the "how many candies are in the jar" contest at our office, though, so take it FWIW.

How in the world did you a.) collect & store 15,500+ golf balls, and b.) transport 15,500+ golf balls. 

Addendum:  I agree w/Dave; I've seen 55gal barrels.  But a 100gal is one huge-ass barrel!

BamaWade

Edited September 29, 2016 by BamaWade

[DaveP043]

4 minutes ago, BamaWade said:

I'm not an engineer.  But I'd estimate that you're talking over 15,500 balls.

I arrive at that via:

There are 23,100 cubic inches in 100 us liquid gallons.  A golf ball is 2.5 cubic inches.  That gives 9,240 units per 100 gallons - but I'm lopping off ~10% of the volume for space (not dealing with liquid) - giving me ~8,200 per barrel, then a little more for the top of the barrel being cut, giving us 15,500+.

I always lose the "how many candies are in the jar" contest at our office, though, so take it FWIW.

How in the world did you a.) collect & store 15,500+ golf balls, and b.) transport 15,500+ golf balls. 

Addendum:  I agree w/Dave; I've seen 55gal barrels.  But a 100gal is one huge-ass barrel!

BamaWade

There you go, I'd say we have some upper and lower bounds.  I estimated based on a cube, 1.68 inches on a side, which I know is too MUCH volume for a ball.  A sphere 1.68 inches diameter is to small a volume, because there's always "pore space".  I could go to some reference somewhere and find the porosity (percentage of pore volume) given the most dense arrangement of uniform spheres, but I'm way too lazy.  Simple to say its a S___-load of balls, that's gotta weight 500 pounds or more per barrel.

[Golfingdad]

Googled 100 gallon barrel dimensions and found one that claims to be 27x27x46 inches.  Asssuming that to be accurate, and then roughly assuming that a golf ball consumes 1.5x1.5x1.5 cubed volume of space, then that yields almost 10k balls.

So, I guess my rough guess will be up near 19k balls.

 

[DaveP043]

OK, I'm not too lazy.  1 US gallon is 231 cubic inches, so 100 gal is 23,100 cubic inches.  Minimum porosity is 25.95 %, so the most dense arrangement of balls in 100 gallons would have 5,994 CI of void space, leaving 17,105 CI for golf balls.  A 1.68" diameter sphere has a volume of 2.5 CI.  That means you can get 9,314 golf balls in 100 gallons, neglecting edge effects.

[CarlSpackler]

You had exactly a sh17/0ad of balls. 

[Golfingdad]

3 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

I estimated based on a cube, 1.68 inches on a side, which I know is too MUCH volume for a ball.  A sphere 1.68 inches diameter is to small a volume, because there's always "pore space".

Yeah, I didn't really feel like trying to get too into it so I figured a cube but went slightly smaller on all sides to account for balls nestling into the crooks between adjacent balls.

I mean, that's how most of my "calculations" go anyway.  Estimate, estimate, estimate! (Then round up to the safe side) :)

[Hardspoon]

18 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

OK, I'm not too lazy.  1 US gallon is 231 cubic inches, so 100 gal is 23,100 cubic inches.  Minimum porosity is 25.95 %, so the most dense arrangement of balls in 100 gallons would have 5,994 CI of void space, leaving 17,105 CI for golf balls.  A 1.68" diameter sphere has a volume of 2.5 CI.  That means you can get 9,314 golf balls in 100 gallons, neglecting edge effects.

That 25.95% assumes you've carefully packed each layer, arranging them perfectly for maximum efficiency. For "random" packing, that number is closer to 35%.

So, closer to 7,000 balls, practically speaking.

[newtogolf]

5 gallon bucket holds about 300 golf balls, so I'd say around 6,000 golf balls per 100 gallon barrel, 12,000 total for 2 barrels.  

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, Golfingdad said:

Yeah, I didn't really feel like trying to get too into it so I figured a cube but went slightly smaller on all sides to account for balls nestling into the crooks between adjacent balls.

I mean, that's how most of my "calculations" go anyway.  Estimate, estimate, estimate! (Then round up to the safe side) :)

I learned in my first year of college, measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe, kick it til it fits.

[14ledo81]

3 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Yeah, I didn't really feel like trying to get too into it so I figured a cube but went slightly smaller on all sides to account for balls nestling into the crooks between adjacent balls.

I mean, that's how most of my "calculations" go anyway.  Estimate, estimate, estimate! (Then round up to the safe side) :)

Are you giving away the secret to engineering???

[ZappyAd]

At the rate I can lose them, about 7 rounds worth.

[boogielicious]

14 hours ago, newtogolf said:

5 gallon bucket holds about 300 golf balls, so I'd say around 6,000 golf balls per 100 gallon barrel, 12,000 total for 2 barrels.  

This approach would have to take into account the surface affect (balls against the edge of the barrel having different spacing versus the balls away from the surface). The affect of the surface goes down with larger volume.

I would have weighed the empty barrels to tare them, then weighed the full barrels. The using an average weight of the balls from 10 to 100 balls, we could estimate the total number of balls.

[Patch]

18 hours ago, BamaWade said:

I'm not an engineer.  But I'd estimate that you're talking over 15,500 balls.

I arrive at that via:

There are 23,100 cubic inches in 100 us liquid gallons.  A golf ball is 2.5 cubic inches.  That gives 9,240 units per 100 gallons - but I'm lopping off ~10% of the volume for space (not dealing with liquid) - giving me ~8,200 per barrel, then a little more for the top of the barrel being cut, giving us 15,500+.

I always lose the "how many candies are in the jar" contest at our office, though, so take it FWIW.

How in the world did you a.) collect & store 15,500+ golf balls, and b.) transport 15,500+ golf balls. 

Addendum:  I agree w/Dave; I've seen 55gal barrels.  But a 100gal is one huge-ass barrel!

BamaWade

One of the businesses I work at a long time ago cleaned up properties that use to be old golf courses. Thats where most of them came from. Others came from areas next to driving ranges that were cleared for single, and multi family homes. Others, I just accumulated over the years. .

As for storage, they were kept in plastic crates. Most were stored in two staorage units, with other junk. A few hundred or so were in my garage. I have a cousin who lives on a golf course, who use to give about 4 or 5 , 6 gallon paint buckets of balls every  year that they collected from their back yard. 

The hardest part about moving them was the plastic crates they were originally in, cracked open when we went to move them.  We put them in other containers, and loaded them into a rental truck. Each crate was off loaded by hand, at the course,  and dumped into the larger barrels. I hired my grandson and a couple of his friends to help move them. 

Now the "why" part. A long time ago, myself and a couple of friends had this idea to open a driving range on a piece of property we all owned. We figured since were collecting the balls, why not use them. That idea fell through for various reasons. Next I dea was to sell them to some company in Arizona who baught used golf equipment, including balls. That idea went south for what ever reasons too. So for the last 9 years or so, these balls ( and other stuff)  have just been stored, mostly forgotten about. A few months back, my two friends and I decided to clean out our storage units with some 20 years of "business stuff" stored in them. Nothing really sinister or anything. Just cleaning up stuff. 

Based on what you all have calculated, I figure 10K plus is about right. I don't actually know if the barrels would hold 100 gallons, because I dont really. know how much of the top was cut off. I just know they won't need to buy any balls for a while at the range.