Volume Calculation

[Ricardo]

Hi Guys,

not sure where to post this as i was looking for an open source solution that may have been uploaded!!...so sorry if in wrong area.

Anyway...i need to come up with an area within my db that calculates water volume of a tank.

i need to be able to calculate the volume of water when items are placed in the water thus displacing the water.

e.g. if i add 11kg of rock to a tank that holds 90 litres of water...what will the volume of water be once the rock has displaced the water??

The user may also want to work in pounds, kilos, grams...so rather than specifying they have added 11 kilos of rock they may want to specify 11 pounds of rock etc etc.

if there is already a solution for this can someone point in the right direction...if not any help would be appreciated

Thanks in advance

Edited May 29, 2007 by Guest

[Inky Phil]

Hi Ricardo

I havn't got the calcs that you want but in the hope that it gets you started....

One cubic centimeter of water weighs .002205 of a pound or 1 gram or .001 of a kilo.

Conversely,

One litre weighs 2.204684 pounds or 1000.028 grams or 1.000028 kilos

Hope that helps

Phil

[David McQueen]

Your main problem here would appear to be obtaining a table of materials with standard volumes and associated weights or vice versa, standard weights with associated volume.

Once you have that, the problem becomes pick a material, put in a weight multiplier and have the volume fall out.

I don't think it is the programming that will get you so much as finding the appropriate data table.

HTH

Dave McQueen

[IdealData]

The volume of displacement is the same as the volume of the rocks before they were immersed.

Assuming the "rocks" have the same mass ratio (viz, concrete is typically 2.5T per cubic metre) then you can make your own table by measuring the gain in height of the water after you add a known weight of "rocks"

In order to measure the displacement volume you need to measure the gain in height of the water after a known weight of rocks has been added. Multiply the height gain by the surface area of the tank and you have your volume.

A 90 litre tank may be difficult to get accurate measurements without using large amounts of rocks. Try adding 10 kilos a time and measure each height gain. Plot the result on a graph and you should be able to establish your mass ratio index for your "rocks" and this will be your calculation constant.

[Genx]

One litre weighs 2.204684 pounds or 1000.028 grams or 1.000028 kilos... at 28.2 C where the water sample is 99.3291% in purity and has a density of 1.000321kg/l. Point is you can't just say that. That will never really be the case unless you have a really really controlled lab environment.

But as a side note on the metric system... Its such a perfect system, one piece of metal 1000cm in length at exactly 0 degrees C which also happens to be the freezing temperature of water, and another whole unit 100 happens to be boiling temperature.

Lol, I learnt two new things today:

1) Louis XVI was actually useful for something

2) Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States are the only remaining countries not using the metric system. And here i was thinking "if the US uses, it must still be quite prevelant"... no one thinks this is a bit stubborn?

Marge: Now, I know you haven't liked some of my past suggestions, like switching to the metric system --

Abe: The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

Random i know, but its just a general thing...

[David Jondreau]

Kilograms are units of mass. Liters are units of volume. If you're adding 11kg of pumice you'll displace a different amount of water than if you add 11kg of granite.

[Ricardo]

excelent point regarding the type of rock! the more porous the rock the less displacement!

so working out the volume of water in a tank, which started off with 90 litres and then had 11kg of rock added is quite difficult to calculate then?!!?!?!?

My idea was for the user to specify the weight type i.e. Kilos, Pounds etc and the starting water colume in their tanks e.g. 90 litres and then calculate the volume of water remaining...would you say this is not going to give a 'true' reading?

[comment]

is quite difficult to calculate then?!!?!?!?

Not difficult, just impossible. You need to know the density of the rock substance (i.e. how much does a cubic meter of this type of rock weigh).

Once you know that, you can calculate the volume of the actual rock, which is equal to the volume of the displaced water (assuming the rock substance is heavier than water).

[Inky Phil]

...and assuming also that the relative density of the rock is consistent ...

[Genx]

... Even if it wasn't consistent, you could probably set up some sort of probability distribution that could get you fairly accurate results.

[Inky Phil]

To be accurate you would need the specific gravity of the material to be included in the calc (specific gravity being relative density but with the reference density being that of water).

Given that the user has available the specific gravity of the rock, and that that is a consistent figure, and accepting what Genx said about temperature and it's affect on the result then it should be a fairly straightforward calc!!

I think.

Phil

[Robert Kidd]

Aquariums ?

[m.v.peabody]

Lol, I learnt two new things today:

1) Louis XVI was actually useful for something

2) Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States are the only remaining countries not using the metric system. And here i was thinking "if the US uses, it must still be quite prevelant"... no one thinks this is a bit stubborn?

Marge Simpson: Now, I know you haven't liked some of my past suggestions, like switching to the metric system --

Abe: The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

It's a matter of not wanting to change old and accepted ways. Twelve inches in a foot, 5,280 feet to a mile, and the truth is, none of us care how many inches there are in a mile or we might do something about it.

Old and accepted ways don't necessarily mean better or worse. But our lack of desire to conform to the way everybody else does it probably says a lot on whatever level you want to go.

Most of us here in the USA talk about our gas mileage: that is, how many miles per gallon we get from our automobiles. I'm looking for a conversion of miles per hour to furlongs per fortnight.

Edited June 8, 2007 by Guest

[comment]

Old and accepted ways don't necessarily mean better or worse.

Mostly true - but not always:

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

[m.v.peabody]

Ah, yes, I remember it well. (Didn't realize that's been 8 years ago!)

The following metric cartoon was published on 1999 October 04 in the Buffalo (NY) News following the crash of NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter into the planet Mars.

...and if that's not a good enough reason to go metric, what is?

I had originally gotten online to post this cartoon, or one like it, into my previous post.

Converting Feet to Meters

I've never been able to find a copy of my dad's favorite cartoon, which was of a printer who had ordered his shirt from a tailor with sleeves 1440 picas long. (You can imagine the sleeves all over the floor, right?)

The US doesn't want me to be their spokesman for defending English units of measurement. (Which, according to GenX, are no longer being used by the English?)

[Genx]

Which, according to Genx, are no longer being used by the English?

I didn't say that... well I probably implied it --Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States are the only countries that completely rely on a system other than the metric system. The english primarily use metric but it doesn't stop them from using the other system -- or where it has to be used.

E.g. In Australia we've been fully metric for ages, but most of our land subdivisions are done in yards and acres so we still have to do conversions.

[m.v.peabody]

Yeah...that attribution was my way of getting out of doing research.

If only there were some system available whereupon you could just type something and the information was readily at your fingertips....

:Whistle:

Edited June 9, 2007 by Guest

[Genx]

LOL!

[Stuart Taylor]

Being a brit i can say that my education in England was purely metric. My parents were educated with feet and inches, but now mainly use the metric system although my father (who is a carpenter) switches between the two, because building materials are sometimes cut using metric and sometimes imperial measurements.

The funny thing is we do still use imperial measurements but mainly because we do so much trade with the US or because older trades still get there materials cut to imperial dimensions.

I would be gutted if i ordered a bit of 2 by 2 wood and it was 2 x 2 cm he he

[comment]

If only there were some system available whereupon you could just type something and the information was readily at your fingertips....

Yeah, like Wikipedia, for example.