Posted on 12/09/2005 10:49:04 AM PST by Travis McGee
I recently came across a photo which purports to show nearly a billion dollars in privately owned gold bullion, in one vault. The gold bullion is supposed to be held in trust for shareholders who purchase ETFs or gold shares in this company. Be that as it may, I don't want this thread to turn into a discussion of precious metal ETFs, or the price of gold, or gold versus fiat money etc.
I just have some questions which only an engineer can answer. Does this picture physically "add up?"
I rough-count approx. 150 pallets in sight, with approx. 80 bars per pallet. At about 100# per ingot, six pallets high, that makes each stack of pallets weigh about 48,000 freaking pounds!!
On plain wooden pallets! Not special steel pallets, or some other custom pallet designed to hold a billion dollars worth of gold in one room.
I once handled 10,000 pounds of lead in 50# ingots (for a boat keel) and it was impressively heavy when stacked up! Gold as we know is much heavier than lead, almost double. (Gold's specific gravity = 19.32, Lead = 11.34)
So I have a few phsical questions civil engineers might want to tackle. Can you determine likelihood that the gold bars are real, from this photo, based on the pallet materials, pallet construction and orientation, and the weight and distribution of the alleged gold ingots?
This is what made me wonder, when first I examined the photo.
#1: Look at how most of the wooden pallets' edges overhang the stack of gold bars below them. That is, the vertical wood risers between the two flat wooden "floors" are not directly on top of the gold below them. The vertical wood riser in the center is, but the risers on the sides are hanging out over space. Much of the crushing weight of those thousands and thousands of pounds of (supposed) gold is held on the thin horizontal wooden "floors." I think it could be shown (even with lead bars in a test) that such pallets, stacked exactly that way, would crack apart under the cumulative weight of gold. The gold ingots do not completely span the space between the risers, that is, they do not rest their ends directly over the wooden risers on the sides of the pallets, putting the risers in simple compression.
The vertical wood beams would have to be under the gold to directly support the incredible weight, and not hanging out over the edges, over thin air. That is my layman's opinion, anyway, based on stacking and handling 200 bars of lead, weighing 50# each, once upon a time.
Question #2: How did the forklift load those top pallets? The ceiling of the vault is seems rather low for a forklift to get them up there. Don't forklifts need some clear space above them for high lifts? At least 3 or 4 or so extra feet, I'm guessing from memory. So, did they use forklifts to carry the approx. 8,000# pre-loaded pallets into the vault? That is the clear implication from the orientation of every single pallet facing their open sides toward the camera.
OTOH, if you were loading empty wooden pallets by hand, bar-by-bar, every warehouseman should know (this is "warehouse 101") to alternate the orientation of the pallets 90 degrees, each pallet, to vastly increase the stability of the overall stack of pallets. If a stack of pallets broke or collapsed (crushed the wood and tumbled sideways, because they were all oriented the same direction) it could kill somebody under the ensuing gold avalanche. Remember, each pallet stack of gold weighs approx. 48,000#, based on my estimate of 100# per bar (which may be way off.) Alternating pallet directions for stability is a basic practice, if they were loaded in place by hand, bar-by-bar, and not by forklift.
So the only reason all of the pallets would be oriented this way toward the camera, would be because they were brought into the vault by a forklift, and not bar-by-bar, by hand. If so, could a forklift place those top pallets up there, given the ceiling space above the top pallets? And if they were loaded in place, bar-by-bar, what warehouseman would not alternate the pallet orientation, for stability and safety?
These question only raised my suspicions about the pictures. Now, an engineer might be able to total up the weight of the gold bars, figure out the crushing /compression strength of the wood, figure out how much of the total stack weight is carried to the floor through the vertical risers, and how much is simply downward weight upon the unsupported horizontal wooden pallet floors, and determine if this is a possible photo of actual gold, or possibly something else.
Since I can't go and physically inspect the ingots in this vault, I'm just curious what engineers think about the credibility of the photo, based on the physical sciences.
Remember, this is gold held in trust for investors, who pay their money, but do not, as far as I can determine, get to visit the secret vault and inspect it.
Maybe an engineering professor can give this question to his students, as a test.
http://www.cwc.org/plastic/pl_htm/PL-00-1rpt.htm
A little bit tangential, but these plastic pallets are rated to take over 200,000 lbs of static load.
The point is that it's photoshopped. No owner of that amount of gold would permit it to be photographed.
I think what may be confusing some folks - is the fact they can't clearly see there is a CENTER support on each pallet, and a sheet of material bridging the THREE pallet riser beams.
The end of the center support is covered in part by the I.D. label..
This center support would make it possible to stack the shown number of gold bars in the manner shown -- assuming wooden beams and bridging sheets of suitable material and condition.
Semper Fi
"We need to know the exact weight of the gold above"
You can't w/o seeing all the actual bars. How many of them are there? That is the missing term.
I don't accept that proposition. From the pictures, the decking of the pallets appears to be 2x4s, and the risers appear to be 4x8x. Much sturdier than an ordinary pallet.
Moroever the warehousing of the gold doesn't seem approriate.
I see the three risers, but still, the load does not extend out over the side risers. It's a sheer strength problem, not only compression. The sheer strength of those horizontal wooden floors is only a fraction of their compressive strength.
I have no problem with your numbers, when you are talking about a load (steel beams, heavy equipment on a full length steel skid) bearing down on the risers in compression. No problem at all.
But if you look carefully at the bottom corner of that bottom pallet on the right, you can see it's not lined up in compression, as they would be if the ingots bridged between the risers.
The ingots do not extend over the risers. There is no bridging effect, or very little. MOst of the load is in SHEER where the horizontal floors meet the vertical risers.
As you know, the horizontal wood's sheer strength is only a fraction of its compressive strength.
The bars in the photo appear longer than 7 inches, or, less than 3 5/8 wide. The ratio of length to width for the gold bars stored at Ft. Knox is approximately 2:1. The bars in your photo appear to have a ratio closer to 3:1.
Look at the thickness of the pallet beams and the fact that the pallet floor is solid -- no gaps between floor boards. I googled images for "wood pallet" and on the first 10 pages I did not see a pallet quite like that. These are special order pallets.
Also, I do not count 80 per pallet, I see 3 x 5 = 15 each corner and 5 x 2 stacked inside, to the total of 70, and that is for the most heavily loaded pallets. Most stacks of pallets has 3-high and 4-high loads per pallet.
lets say each bar weighs in at 30 pounds each pallet has 84 ingots (7x3x4) and then stacked 6 high this comes to around 15000 pounds exerted on the bottom pallet.
A standard heavy duty wood pallet can take around 3500 pounds (standard metal ones can take 6000 pounds.) It looks like you have 15000-pound load on the bottom pallets you are way over the limits of a standard heavy-duty pallet. Granted these seem to be even stronger pallets then what I am referring to.
It is way over their weight limits in my opinion. Dont forget to take into account the drop weight when the forklift places the top pallet on the stack.
Why not have it sent to me via UPS and I'll try to determine if it's real.
I want to know how you got into my basement to take the photo.
I'd just build these custom pallets with 5 or even 7 web risers, then it's a moot point.
I mean, how much money did they save on lumber, given the value of the load?
There are a lot of unknown variables, but it sure seems like a cheesy and unstable way to stack millions of dollars in gold.
The load is largely transmitted to the floor through the beams on the sides and center of the pallets.
Ummm ... look at the picture.
Its quite clear the side beams are floating in space on every stack and are not directly supported (they are cantilevered out by the bottom planks, which appear to be 1x8's). The gold is stacked on the top plate of wood of each pallet up to the side beams, but not over them.
The gold is a simple distributed load, but more of the load will be acting on the center support than the ends.
g = the load of gold per foot
M = force on the middle beam
E = force on the outside beam
x = length of gold stack
b = width of beam beyond the edge of gold stack
Solving the normal equations of force and Moment at M:
gx = M + 2*E
E*(x+b) = (g*x/2)*(x/4)
Gives:
M = g*x + (g*x^2)/[4*(x+b)]
E = (g*x^2)/[8*(x+b)]
If x = 2.5 ft, b = 0.25 ft, and g = 900 lb/ft. (2250 lb/2.5 ft.), then:
M = 1739 lb and E = 256 lb
The load from the middle beam is going to be imposed directly down the middle of the stack, with slight distribution to the sides of the middle on each of the stacks below, while the load on the edge beams will act as a point load on the edge of the gold stack and should cause bending and a rotational deflection in the end of the 1x8 plank that lifts it slightly off the stack below, due to a lack of direct support under the end beam.
Most of the load is going straight down the middle to the floor, and should end up imposing a roughly 50 psi pressure on the floor in the 2/3 sq. ft. of the two planks on the bottom pallet that is centered on either end of the middle beam.
The only real question is whether there is a type of wood that can support the roughly 10,500 lbs load in shear being imposed on it in the bottom pallet. I suspect there is, since these loads are near to the type of loads imposed on railway ties - 40,000 lbs on an 8"x14" section of wood. This is 10,500 lbs on a 3"x8".
The fork lift operator is a seniority position. That is, that is not an inexperienced young operator.
My wife also has a hard time judging 7 inches.
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