Tons to Square Yards
by Keith Wagner on 03/22/05 at 10:31:59

Robert,

How would I go about converting a figure in Tons to Square Yards? I believe you have to get the tonage figure to ounces, but from there I'm stumped ??? Any help would be greatly appreciated?  Thx

Re: Tons to Square Yards
by Robert Fogt on 03/22/05 at 12:42:15

To convert tons to a unit of volume, you would need to know the density of the substance. If you let me know the substance, I may be able to look it up.

Knowing the density, you can convert from tons, to a volume such as cubic yards. Then, to convert to square yards, you'd need to know one more dimension, such as the height.  For example, if you want to know how many square yards a ton of gravel will cover, you'd need to know how thick it will be spread.

Re: Tons to Square Yards
by Keith Wagner on 03/22/05 at 13:22:54

Lets say I have an 8-inch Asphalt paved roadway with a quantity shown as being 7,930 Tons.

I believe I found a formula for arriving at tons from square feet, but not sure if it's correct or how to properly reverse it.

The equation looks like this:
     (((19826*9)*(8/12))*133.33)/2000 = 7930 TN

19826 being ft2.

What I'm looking to be able to do is take known tonage and width figures and plug them into a formula that would produce the Square foot figure that was originally used to determine the tonage figure.

Thanks for the reply and any assistance you can give.

P.S. What a great site! The first thing I did is Bookmark it!

Re: Tons to Square Yards
by Robert Fogt on 03/23/05 at 01:53:55

What you need is to know the density or specific gravity of asphalt.

I did some searching and found Crushed Asphalt has a density of 720 kilograms/cubic meter, which is about 45 pounds/cubic foot. And Concrete Asphalt has a density of 2240 kilograms/cubic meter, which is about 140 pounds/cubic foot.

The formula to calculate the total tonnage would be:

((square feet) * (height in feet) * (?? pounds/cubic foot)) / 2000 = tons [U.S.]

When I use the density of crushed asphalt, I come up with 297.39 tons. When I use the density of cement asphalt I come up with 925.21 tons.

Both values are way less then the tonnage you have shown.  That most likely means you use an asphalt with a vastly different density, or were over-charged, or you have the square footage wrong, or the height wrong.

I found a list of densities of various types of asphalt here:
http://www.infratech.com/technical_corner/tables_calculators/metric/density_asphalt_materials.htm

If you pick the specific kind of asphalt I can be more exact in my calculations.

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