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The cubic meter calculator is used to calculate the volume of a shipment carton or box by using the three dimensions, which are length, width, and height. CBM Calculator is heavily used in the shipping industry including rail, air, and water transport. They rely on cubic meters to calculate the size or weight of the shipment. The courier services or shippers face common problems of measuring the cartons or total size of the consignment, and this is where our cubic calculator comes in handy. It can also be used by students and teachers to solve the math problems related to the volume of cubic shapes.
To calculate the CBM of a box, measure the length, width, and height of the box. Enter all of these values in the input boxes given above. CBM calculator accepts the dimensions of the box in meters. After entering the values, click the "Calculate" button. It will show you instant results for the given dimensions. You can benefit from the variety of units that our calculator provides in the result. It gives the calculations in yards, feet, inches, and centimetres. Our cubic meter calculator also offers the visual representation of the box with given dimensions to make the results more appealing for you.
What is CBM?
The volume of cargo in domestic and international freight is the CBM or cubic meter. By multiplying the length, height, and width of the shipment together, the CBM of any shipment can be calculated.
How to Calculate CBM?
CBM calculation is very simple to calculate. Measure the width, height, and length of the carton and multiply them. Repeat the formula and add the volume for every size if your shipment has different sizes. You can use our cubic calculator if you don't want to get stuck in the process of CBM calculation. For manual calculation, you can use the following formula:
\(\text{CBM = Length}\times\text{Width}\times\text{Height}\)
If the CBM of cylindrical products has to be calculated, verify with the courier that they square the circle or use the high school math formula and multiply the Pi and 2 with the radius of the package. Then multiply the number to get the volume by the length of the box.
Examples of CBM calculations
Let's use some real-life examples to understand the concept of cubic meters.
Find out the volume of a water container that has a length of 30 m, a width of 30 m, and a height of 15 m.
The calculation for the volume of this tank is very simple. We will multiply all of the measurements as \(30 \times 30 \times 15 = 13,500 m^3\). The pure mass of the water inside is remarkable. You may know that 1 litre of water is 1 kilogram, the size of one cubic meter is around 1,000 kg of water, ten times larger on the side than 1 litre. It will be around 2200 pounds and a tonne or metric ton. In comparison, a traditional tone is just 2000 pounds.
Let's find out the volume of a ball with 4 m width. We want to know how much air a ball can hold inside with a width of 4 m.
To solve the problem, you need to know or refer to the volume of a sphere and realize that for the physics problem, you can treat the ball as a sphere. The volume of a sphere can be calculated by using the equation \(V = 4 \pi r^3\). You can also use our sphere calculator if you don't want to use the formula. The ball is 4 m wide has a diameter of 4 m, and therefore its radius is 2 m. The volume of the ball will be:
\(V = 4 \times3.14 \times23 = 100.48 m^3\)
This was a more advanced example of CBM calculation, where we calculated the volume of a ball using its width in spherical dimensions.
The relevance of CBM in the shipping industry
Cubic meter is your shipment volume. The volume is used for other important calculations of international freight which could be courier, air or ocean including:
Dimensional weight
Dimensional weight is an opportunity to build a theoretical number of bulky but light shipments. For instance, a pallet of tennis balls would be light and occupy more space, but the volume of an iron pallet would be greater than tennis balls and occupy less space if both items are compared using their volumes.
Chargeable weight
The chargeable weight is simply higher than the dimensional weight (size). In other words, while the price of sea freight is calculated by focusing more on size rather than weight, the air freight is considerably more sensitive towards the size of shipment, so that dimensional weight is normally more important than the actual weight.
Freight class
In the US, most LTL carriers also have created a theoretical number to compensate carriers for over-dimensional freight shipments. Many products shipped by truck fall within simple, weight-determined classes. In calculating the freight class, CBM can also play a big part.
Calculate CBM for irregularly shaped packages
When it comes to standard packages, it is not so difficult and is incredibly simple to get the right CBM measurement by using our cubic meter calculator. Just put the values of dimensions in the input boxes, and you are set to get the results. But it is not the case for irregularly shaped packages.
Make sure that the box limits are not exceeded in all dimensions if your package is shaped irregularly. Imagine, for instance, shipping a really long but narrow package. In this case or for any irregular-shaped package, CMB calculation will be calculated in a different way as compared to standard shaped packages.
You need to identify the tallest, longer, and wider parts of your shipment to solve this problem. The smallest cuboid should be measured to get the dimensions in which your package can fit without occupying any extra space.
You can also check our cylinder volume calculator that can calculate the volume, radius, surface area, and many more for a cylindrical shape. This cylinder volume calculator can estimate the volume of almost every common solid shape that is three dimensional.