|
That's an easy one to figure, measure the dump body on the truck, I'll use one I used to drive as an example. It was an '87 freightliner tri-axle, with a 19'-0" long body. Body dimensions were about 8'-0" wide, 5'-0" sides and 19'-0" long which gives you a cubic foot volume of 760 cu. ft. 27 cubic feet in one cubic yard, convert it over by dividing 760 by 27 = 28.1 cubic yards. Now that is waterline volume, if the body were filled with water, otherwise known as struck ( meaning as if it were heaped with material and scraped off even with a straight edge ) Depending on the moisture content and density of the material, a supplier will regulate the load to be within the legal weight limits as best can be done, so a larger truck may still have room for more volume, but is restricted by weight, depending on it's chassis, number of axles and axle placement, to comply with d.o.t. and bridge laws etc. When I would load out trucks, most times the load was heaped up in the box, but not spilling out the sides, after the last bucket, I would lightly flatten the top so the drivers tarp fit better, but not compact the load in the box and make it hard to dump off. Most times the driver would stand on the cab shield and observe the loading, wave when to stop if there was a concern about placement or overloading. There was usually left over space along the side boards, and if you knocked off the crown or the heaped up part on the load, it would be close to a "struck" load after settling along the sides. They refer to the off road scrapers as struck or heaped when it comes to capacity, heaped can be as much as 5 yards more and can be the same on trucks, if it's really heaped up. My neighbor has a mack tandem, long wheel base with 35 cubic yard struck grain/sileage body, he sometimes delivers sawdust for bedding at our other place, and I'd say that when it's heaped, he's got 40 cu. yds. on without question, this material is light so weight is no issue. Crushed stone is measured in tons, the kind we call Item #4 as per NYS D.O.T. spec's, road sub-base has all the fine aggregate in it, I always forget but I think there's 1 1/2 tons per yard on that if memory serves me right, always forget that one and asphalt paving materials when it comes to converting and or estimating, have to look it up.
|
