Spoil Calculation

[M7ATW]

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this is a daft question, but how's the easiest way of calculating how much spoil (tonnes) is going to be created by an excavation?

for example if you were to expose an area od say 6m x 4m x 400m deep - how many tonnes of spoil would need to be removed?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[tony1851]

A reasonable figure would be 2000kg/m3, + or - 5%,
so - say - 19 to 20 tonnes?

 

[M7ATW]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the reply, that's great.

If I was calculating the weight of loose materials such as road stone etc, that's going to be mechanically compacted, would you calculate it at about the same rate?

I'd imagine loose materials would be nearer 3000kg per m3 would it not?

All your help much appreciated.

 

[SFK]

Dear M7ATW

Here is a link to the densities of many many different materials. Possibly too detailed for you (for example there are 8 different sand weights!), but might be useful in you calculation. Note that their units are in kg/m3.

http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm

Sand, wet 1922
Sand, wet, packed 2082
Sand, dry 1602
Sand, loose 1442
Sand, rammed 1682
Sand, water filled 1922
Sand with Gravel, dry 1650
Sand with Gravel, wet 2020

 

[noseall]

We normally work on that a tonne of material will roughly fill half a cubic metre of space.