How much weight can a helium balloon lift?

[Anagoge]

I do hope I've posted this in the right forum. Apologies if it isn't.

 

I need to know how much weight a latex balloon filled with helium can lift and still happily sail away into the sky. I know there's no real 'standard' size for a balloon, but if you can imagine your typical birthday party balloon, that might help. What I *don't* mean are the foil balloons.

 

I realise that to answer this question, you would need to know how much helium is inside a balloon. I don't have an answer to this and I'm hoping that you can guess an educated guess to estimate how much would be inside a balloon.

 

So, to clarify, I would like to know as accurately as possible how much weight (in grammes if possible) a helium-filled latex balloon can lift and still float high in the sky.

 

Thanks if you can help with this strange question!

[tvp45]

Hello,

 

Not a strange question, but a loosely defined one. I sort of know the answer because I get to tie up the little sand bags that anchor the balloons at the annual fete at a local adoption agency.

 

But, I think this is a class assignment? So, you must have held such a balloon at some time. Can you close your eyes and remember the pull on your hand? Would you say it was enough to lift a toothpick? How about a small coin? A pack of gum?

[Anagoge]

Hi tvp, thanks for responding. To answer your first question, no, it's not a class assignment. It's actually for a personal project that I'm working on. I didn't include the details because I wanted my post to be as succint as possible, but perhaps more details will help.

 

I'm a graphic designer. My logo is a hot air balloon as seen on my website http://www.theworkof.co.uk. To promote myself, I plan to set some helium balloons free. Each balloon will have a business card attached. I want to know if the helium inside the balloon will be enough to lift a business card attached to it.

 

Earlier tonight, I found out that my business card will weigh no more than 1.84g. I still don't know how much helium would be inside a balloon, but I do know that the balloon is 9 inches in diameter.

 

Before I purchase helium, balloons and a special set of business cards for this event, I want to know if the balloon will be able to lift the business card and not only lift it, but carry it off into the sky as if nothing was attached to it.

 

Thanks for the further help!

[iNow]

This might help: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99471.htm

 

Or this: http://science.howstuffworks.com/helium2.htm

 

 

Or any of the other ones google showed me.

 

One cubic foot of helium will lift about 28.2 grams. You can get the rest from there.

[swansont]

Already been asked

[Anagoge]

iNow, the "How Stuff Works Page" is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Thank you very much. I didn't Google it because I thought it was a fairly strange question. Perhaps not as strange as I thought!

 

According to that page, I've worked out that a 9 inch balloon can lift 7.7g, which is far more than my 1.86g business card! That's great.

 

Thank you for the quick and very useful help.