Conversion Question?

Question

Does anybody know what the formula is to convert 14,520lbs of a substance over to gallons? The specific gravity of the substance is .94.

Answer 1

I'm sure there are other ways, but this is the only one I can think of offhand ...

"A pint's a pound, the world around."

... and water has a specific gravity of 1,

so 14,520 lbs/(.94) = 15446.81 pints

2 pints/quart, 4 quarts/gallon = 8 pints/gallon

15446.81 pints * (1gallon/8 pints)

1930.85 gallons (US gallons).

I strongly encourage you to double-check this.

Answer 2

Pure water has a specific gravity of 1. A liquid ounce of water weighs one ounce (by definition). 16 ounces to a pound.

It takes 8 pounds of water to fill a US gallon (4x32 ounces = 128 ounces, at 16 ounces per pound) and 10 pounds to fill an imperial gallon (4x40 ounces).

If a liquid has a specific gravity less than 1, then a gallon of it will weigh less than one gallon of water.

Let's do the Imperial gallon: Liquid has a specific gravity of 0.94, therefore one gallon will weigh 10*0.94 = 9.4 lbs.

You have 14,520 lbs, then 14520/9.4 = 1544.7 imperial gallons.

If the substance is not liquid, you may want to define very clearly what it means to 'fill' a gallon.

Answer 3

In this case the S.G. of the substance has no bearing on its mass, as it's already declared as 14,520 lbs. (this must be after the S.G. has been taken into account).
1 US gallon = 8.3 lbs of water.
(If you multiply this by 0.94 then it will be 7.8 lbs/gallon of another substance of which you have 14,520lbs).

So...14,520lbs ÷ 8.3 = 1,749 US gallons

In Imperial 1 UK gallon = 10lbs.
14,520 ÷ 10 = 1,452 UK gallons.

(By the way, a pint is NOT a pound the world around. In the UK a pint is 20 oz = 1¼ pints (pounds) US).