How many kilograms are in 10 liters of sand?
How many kilograms are in 10 liters of sand?
Answer
The bulk density of sand is 1.65–2 kg/L, measured like this: dry loose fill; wet sand bulks up and can weigh less. The range here comes from packing, not from any doubt about the source.
How the mass of 10 liters of sand was worked out
For a bulk material the density depends on packing, so the sum runs along both edges of the band: the lower edge is a loose pour, the upper one is dense packing.
1.65 kg/L × 10 L
=16.5 kg
loose pour
2 kg/L × 10 L
=20 kg
dense packing
The density comes from FAO, Basic Materials for Construction. Dry loose fill; wet sand bulks up and can weigh less.
Why a liter and a kilogram are not the same thing
A liter measures volume, a kilogram measures mass, and density is what ties them together: how many kilograms one liter of this particular substance comes to. The coincidence that makes people treat them as one thing is historical — in 1795 the gram was defined as the mass of one cubic centimeter of water, so a liter of water weighed a kilogram by construction. For anything else the equality breaks.
The extremes of this page make it obvious: one liter of LPG weighs 0.51 kg, while one liter of densely packed sand weighs 2 kg — four times more at the very same volume.
If the substance is not known in advance, start from how many kilograms are in 10 liters — the same volume across every substance at once.
The other way round: how much room a kilogram takes
This page starts from a volume and answers in kilograms. The opposite question — how many liters a given mass comes to — is what the kilograms to liters calculator is for. Both read the same density table, so the two pages agree wherever the answer is volume times density.
For sand that means 10 liters weighs 16.5–20 kg here, and one kilogram of it takes 0.5–0.61 liters there.
If you are filling a site rather than a bucket
This page answers «how much does this much sand weigh». The opposite question — «how much sand to order for a site of such and such size» — is what the sand calculator is for: it takes length, width and depth and answers in cubic yards and tons.
The two pages agree on purpose: there the density is 1,650–2,000 kg per cubic meter, here it is the same band of 1.65–2 kg/L, because a cubic meter is a thousand liters.
Related Calculations
See Also
- Kilograms to Liters - How many liters are in a kilogram of water, honey, gasoline, sand and other substances — by density
- L to Ml - Convert Liters to Milliliters
- Sand Calculator - Cubic yards, tons and coverage for any area
- Topsoil Calculator - Cubic yards, weight and coverage for any area
<a href="https://calculat.io/en/volume/l-to-kg/10--sand">10 liters of sand = 16.5–20 kg - Calculatio</a>
How much 10 liters of each substance weighs
| Substance | Mass | Density, kg/L |
|---|---|---|
| Beer | 10.1 kg | 1.01 |
| Cement | 12.5–14 kg | 1.25–1.4 |
| Coal | 6.5–12.7 kg | 0.654–1.266 |
| Cucumbers | 6.2–6.4 kg | 0.62–0.64 |
| Diesel | 8.34 kg | 0.834 |
| Gasoline | 7.4 kg | 0.74 |
| Honey | 14.2 kg | 1.42 |
| Juice | 10.6 kg | 1.06 |
| LPG | 5.1 kg | 0.51 |
| Milk | 10.3 kg | 1.03 |
| Mineral spirits | 7.8 kg | 0.78 |
| Motor oil | 8.5 kg | 0.85 |
| Sand | 16.5–20 kg | 1.65–2 |
| Soil | 13–15 kg | 1.3–1.5 |
| Sugar | 7.2–9 kg | 0.72–0.9 |
| Tomatoes | 5.5–6 kg | 0.55–0.6 |
| Vegetable oil | 9.2 kg | 0.92 |
| Wall primer | 10 kg | 1 |
| Water | 9.98 kg | 0.998 |