Do aerosol cans have to be cylindrical?

Question

Is it possible to have one with a square cross-section with rounded edges, cheaplyish?

Answer 1

They can be square, but it's a lot easier and cheaper to make round cans that can withstand the internal pressure. Square ones would need much thicker walls and/or reinforcing. How often do you see square balloons?

Addendum: As a marketing gimmick, how can square cans be manufactured "cheaplyish", that would hold the pressure? Well, let's see, one way is to consider a "square can" that has a square cross section, but has a bulge in the middle, so that all four sides are actually segments of a cylindrical surface. Producing such cans out of seamless aluminum would be difficult, but not impossible, requiring entirely new tooling from the conventional ones that have been in use for over half a century. Another variant of this idea is to have wavy sides, while maintaining a square cross section, so that at least most of the surface area is composed of segments of a cylindrical surface. With a little refinement, it should be possible to keep the flexure of the can from internal pressure to a minimum. This, again, would be even harder to manufacture than the previous idea, but not impossible. if a large beer company was willing to spend millions in developing tooling for such unusual aluminum cans, it can be done. Such a wavy can with square cross section might be able to be refined to the point where it's almost like a vertical box, but nonetheless, having that small amount of waviness is critical to its structural strength.

Addendum 2: You know, I recall that years ago I used to fold a piece of paper that could be "rolled" together into a slender vertical box with wavy sides. Now that I think about it, maybe that can be done with tin cans, and I believe it could be structurally sound for internal pressures.

Answer 2

The purpose of using cylindrical cans compared to square ones is that, the cylindrical cans can provide the same distribution of stress on the internal of the can which give equal distribution of internal pressure inside the can.

Answer 3

No, they don't, but other than spherical, a cylindrical pressure vessel will require less material to hold a given pressure (depending on end cap design).

Answer 4

No. Since none of them are really cylindrical.
Most have a concave bottom to measure
what it's the cylinder.

Answer 5

"Get a grip!" That's why cans are round...easier to grasp and hold!