This investigation is reproduced from the book Challenging Mathematics by Beverley Childs, Chris Emerson, Colin Manser, Murray Britt and Peter Hughes by Heinemann Educational Books.

A chemical tanker was driving from Christchurch to Dunedin when it was involved in an accident. The tanker ended up on its side and leaking acid! The police had to find some way to siphon the acid from inside the damaged tanker. The full chemical tanker was approximately in the shape of a cylinder and had a diameter of 3.12 m and was 9.04 m long. They found they had two alternatives to remove the acid as quickly as possible.

ALTERNATIVE 1
The acid could be syphoned into a bulk storage container (shown below) although it was known that the nearest one was already 80% full. Acid could be pumped through the pipe at 200m³/hr.

ALTERNATIVE 2
The fire brigade had at their immediate disposal three vehicles into which the acid could be siphoned.

Vehicle 1 A cuboid shaped trailer 1.5 m by 4 m by 2 m into which acid could be pumped at a rate of 197 m³/hr.

Vehicle 2 This was a cylindrical shape.
Unfortunately in the vehicle's manual the page indicating the volume of the vehicle and its length was missing. All that we know about the vehicle was that it had a radius of 1.5 m and the total surface area of the cylindrical container was 80.1 m².
Acid could be pumped into it at a rate of 203 m³/hr.

Vehicle 3 This had a volume of 20 000 litres and acid could be pumped into it at a rate of 200 m³/hr.

Can you think of any other things the services should do to ensure a safe and successful salvage operation?