Tonnage Calculator

This tonnage calculator will help you determine the tonnage of aggregates you will need to cover a particular area and depth. Suppliers usually price the aggregates in terms of weight and tonnage, and this tool will help you quickly estimate that for you. In this calculator, you will learn:

• What tonnage is;
• How to calculate tonnage of aggregates; and
• How to use this tonnage calculator.

Keep on reading to start learning! 🙂

The word "tonnage" itself can mean a lot of things. We can use tonnage to describe the sizing of an HVAC system or how much a ship weighs. Basically, tonnage is the weight in tonnes (or tons for short) of massive volume objects, such as the contents of a cargo ship or earthworks like rocks and gravels.

This calculator focuses on the latter, particularly the different aggregates used in construction. We use these aggregates as bedding materials, subgrade, and subbase of pavements and slabs on the ground or as a part of mixtures like concrete or asphalt. Each kind of aggregate has its own unit weight that we can utilize to estimate its tonnage. Learn more about concrete and asphalt by checking out our concrete calculator and our asphalt calculator.

Now that we know what tonnage means, how about we learn how to figure stone tonnage in the next section of this text?

Learning how to calculate rock tonnage is an invaluable but easy skill, and it is essential when estimating project costs and even buying construction materials. Finding the tonnage of specific materials such as aggregates is a matter of multiplying its occupied volume by its unit weight. We can express that in equation form as follows:

where:

• $W$ – Tonnage of aggregates (in tons, of course);
• $V$ – Aggregates' volume (in cubic meters); and
• $\gamma$ – Aggregates' unit weight (in kilograms per cubic meter).

Multiplying $V\times\gamma$ with $0.001\ \text{tons}/\text{kg}$ converts $V\times\gamma$ from kilograms to tonnes.

When finding the volume of aggregates, we usually take the area that our aggregates will cover and multiply that value by how deep we want our aggregates to be. In equation form, we have that as:

where:

• $V$ – Volume of the aggregates;
• $A$ – Area of the surface we want to cover; and
• $d$ – Depth of the aggregate cover.

Usually, the area we want to cover has a rectangular shape where we can obtain its area by multiplying its length by its width, as shown below:

where:

• $A$ – Area of the surface we want to cover;
• $l$ – Length of the surface; and
• $w$ – Width of the surface.

Of course, there will be times when the area you want to cover may not be rectangular. If that is the case, you can use our area calculator to help you out. For now, keep on reading if you're ready to learn how to figure stone tonnage using this tool.

Our tonnage calculator is straightforward to use — follow these easy steps on how to use it:

1. Select the aggregate you wish to use. Doing so will display its corresponding unit weight.

2. You can also input a custom unit weight value if your preferred aggregate is not in the list. To do this, select "Enter a custom unit weight" at the top of the list.

3. Enter the length and width (or area) of the surface you plan to cover with your chosen aggregate.

4. Enter the depth of your aggregate bedding. Instantly, our tool will compute the volume you need to fill with your selected aggregate. At the same time, you will also already see the equivalent tonnage of your required volume of aggregates.

As an added feature, you can use our tonnage calculator to calculate the cost of your aggregates. Click on the Material cost section and enter your expected wastage, perhaps due to unforeseen mishandling or wastage while pouring the aggregates, and the price per 1 unit of weight of your aggregate to determine its total cost.