Today, sand is a versatile and fairly popular building material. Not a single mortar of concrete can do without this component. Since sand is one of the main elements of construction, you need to approach the choice of this material carefully.
Varieties of sand
Before purchasing this material, you need to know how much a cube of sand weighs in order to correctly calculate the costs. For any construction work, you can use such types of raw materials as:
River material can be called the most common type for the preparation of solutions and mixtures. At a cost it is available, the quality is satisfactory. The price range may be affected by the fraction, the amount of dust impurities, etc.
Sea sand is of high quality and high cost. It should be noted that fine-grained material can cost 3-4 times more expensive than the river counterpart. Few who use marine raw materials in construction.
Quarry sand contains many impurities and alumina, which makes this material completely unsuitable for the construction of buildings. Most often it is used as raw material for arranging pillows and pouring into pits.
Sand cube - what is it?
Many owners of construction companies, foremen, wonder what a sand cube is. Of course, this may seem ridiculous, but some ask about how much a cube of sand weighs, how to convert a ton of material into a cube, and vice versa. Well-founded questions, because you need to correctly calculate the consumption of raw materials for construction work.
To correctly translate the cube of this material into a ton and vice versa, you need to remember one important parameter. Each substance has its own volume and mass. In construction, the concept of the volume of bulk material, which is expressed in cubic meters, is widely used. If the weight of sand is known, the number of so-called cubes can be determined.
Sand tonnage: how much does a sand cube weigh
Take the average value. So, the weight of 1 cubic meter of sand, basically, fits into 1.5-1.7 tons. With such a calculation, it should be borne in mind that wet raw materials will be slightly heavier than dry ones, about 1.8-1.9 tons. In addition, the presence of various impurities, which also give weight, should be taken into account. A cubic meter of ideal material will be approximately 1.3 tons. However, such raw materials are quite expensive.
To accurately calculate how much sand is in a cube, you need to take into account a given volume and degree of compaction. Of course, these parameters can be precisely determined in the laboratory. However, such arguments are unprofitable, so many developers make average calculations.
However, it should be noted that during transportation, storage, development, the volume of sand will significantly change. Therefore, it is recommended to multiply the required amount of material by an indicator of 1.1-1.3, depending on the purpose of the raw material and the technology for its storage.
Basics of calculating the tonnage of sand in m 3
When working with the transfer from one value to another, it should be remembered that two parameters affect the fact how much a cube of sand weighs:
- compaction and moisture content of the material;
- density of raw materials.
In fine-grained quarry sands there are many impurities that strongly compact the raw materials. In this case, the density of the material will be in the range of 1700-1800 kg / m 3 . To determine how much a cube of sand weighs, you need to multiply the density of raw materials by volume.
In coarse sand, the density is in the range of 1400-1600 kg / m 3 . The mass of any bulk material is affected by its moisture content. According to the standard, sand moisture should be about 6-7%. If this indicator varies within 20%, then the mass of the entire material will exceed the estimates by about 5 tons. And this is under the condition that the useful volume of the average dump truck is 12 m 3 .
So, to find out how to convert cubic meters to tonnage was not so difficult. The main thing is to know several parameters.