Units of Conversion

Cubic (Volume) Measure

Review the following table of Standard Units of Conversion to see if you can create fractions that have a value of 1. You can click to examples following each table.

Cubic Measure

1 cubic inch 16.387 cubic centimeters

1,728 cubic inches 1 cubic foot 0.0282 cubic meter

16 cubic feet 1 cord foot 0.453 cubic meter

128 cubic feet 1 cord 3.625 cubic meters

27 cubic feet 1 cubic yard 0.7646 cubic meter

1,000 cubic millimeters 1 cubic centimeter 0.06102 cubic inch

1,000 cubic centimeters 1 cubic decimeter 61.023 cubic inches or 0.0353 cubic foot

1,000 cubic decimeters 1 cubic meter 35.314 cubic feet

Example 1:What exactly does 1 cubic foot mean?

Answer:

One cubic foot means 1 foot $tex2html_wrap_inline354$ 1 foot $tex2html_wrap_inline354$ 1 foot or 1 foot ³.

Example 2:Convert 50 cubic yards to cubic feet.

Solution: From the above table you can see a link between cubic feet and cubic yards.

50 cubic yards can be written as 50 x 1 cubic yard.
Since 27 cubic feet is equivalent to 1 cubic yard, the fraction
$displaymath338$

is equivalent to 1.
Multiply 50 x 1 cubic yard by 1 in the equivalent form
$displaymath339$

to obtain 50 x 1 cubic yard x $tex2html_wrap_inline362$ .
Rewrite the above expression as
$displaymath340$
Multiply the two fractions:
$displaymath341$
Rearrange the numerator:
$displaymath342$
Write the above fraction as a product of fractions so that some of the fractions have a value of 1:
$eqnarray65$
The answer is 1,350 cubic feet, or 1,350 feet³.