Engineering converters
Density Converter
Convert kg/m³, g/cm³, lb/ft³, lb/gal and other density units.
Result
62.428 lb/ft³
1 g/cm³ = 62.428 lb/ft³
All units for this value
| Unit | Symbol | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Kilogram per cubic meter | kg/m³ | 1000 |
| Gram per cubic meter | g/m³ | 1000000 |
| Gram per liter | g/L | 1000 |
| Milligram per liter | mg/L | 1000000 |
| Gram per cubic centimeter | g/cm³ | 1 |
| Gram per milliliter | g/mL | 1 |
| Kilogram per liter | kg/L | 1 |
| Tonne per cubic meter | t/m³ | 1 |
| Ounce per cubic inch | oz/in³ | 0.578037 |
| Ounce per cubic foot | oz/ft³ | 998.847 |
| Pound per cubic inch | lb/in³ | 0.0361273 |
| Pound per cubic foot | lb/ft³ | 62.428 |
| Pound per cubic yard | lb/yd³ | 1685.55 |
| Pound per US gallon | lb/gal (US) | 8.3454 |
| Pound per imperial gallon | lb/gal (UK) | 10.0224 |
| Slug per cubic foot | slug/ft³ | 1.94032 |
About this calculator
Density measures how much mass is packed into a given volume, expressed as a mass unit divided by a volume unit. This converter switches between metric units like kilograms per cubic metre and grams per cubic centimetre and imperial units like pounds per cubic foot, useful for materials science, cooking, and engineering.
How it works in plain English
Every density unit combines a mass measure with a volume measure, and the converter uses kilograms per cubic metre as its common anchor. Your entered value is multiplied by a fixed factor to reach that anchor, then divided by the target unit's factor to produce the converted figure. This keeps conversions consistent across metric units, which usually scale by clean powers of ten, and imperial units, which involve less tidy but well-defined factors.
Metric density units are straightforward because a gram per cubic centimetre happens to equal exactly 1,000 kilograms per cubic metre, since both the gram-to-kilogram and cubic-centimetre-to-cubic-metre scalings are powers of ten. Imperial units are less tidy: a pound per cubic foot equals about 16.0185 kilograms per cubic metre, a factor that comes from combining the pound-to-kilogram mass conversion with the cubic-foot-to-cubic-metre volume conversion.
Select your source and target units from the from and to menus, enter a number, and the converted density appears immediately. A full table lists that same density across every supported unit at once, a precision control adjusts how many decimal places are displayed, and a swap button reverses the two chosen units in a single click.
The formula
- value_in_target = value_in_source × (source factor to kg/m³) ÷ (target factor to kg/m³)
- 1 g/cm³ = 1,000 kg/m³
- 1 kg/L = 1,000 kg/m³
- 1 lb/ft³ = 16.018463 kg/m³
- 1 lb/gal (US) = 119.826427 kg/m³
- 1 oz/ft³ = 1.001154 kg/m³
Worked example
Suppose a material has a density of 0.92 g/cm³, a typical value for many plastics, and you want that in pounds per cubic foot. First convert to the common anchor: 0.92 g/cm³ × 1,000 = 920 kg/m³. Then divide by the lb/ft³ factor: 920 ÷ 16.018463 = 57.44 lb/ft³.
Entering 0.92 into the g/cm³ field with lb/ft³ selected as the target shows 57.44 lb/ft³ right away. The full unit table also confirms this equals 920 kg/m³ and roughly 0.92 kg/L, all calculated from the same entered value without any manual arithmetic.
Common density unit equivalents
| Unit | Equal to (kg/m³) |
|---|---|
| 1 kg/m³ | 1 |
| 1 g/m³ | 0.001 |
| 1 g/L | 1 |
| 1 g/cm³ | 1,000 |
| 1 kg/L | 1,000 |
| 1 t/m³ | 1,000 |
| 1 oz/ft³ | 1.001154 |
| 1 lb/ft³ | 16.018463 |
| 1 lb/in³ | 27,679.904710 |
| 1 lb/gal (US) | 119.826427 |
| 1 lb/gal (UK) | 99.776373 |
| 1 slug/ft³ | 515.378818 |
Standard unit definitions
Frequently asked questions
Why does 1 g/cm³ equal exactly 1,000 kg/m³?
A gram is one-thousandth of a kilogram, and a cubic centimetre is one-millionth of a cubic metre. Dividing the smaller mass unit by the smaller volume unit means the mass shrinks by a factor of 1,000 while the volume shrinks by a factor of 1,000,000, and dividing those two scalings together produces a net factor of exactly 1,000.
What is a slug and why does it appear in density units?
A slug is the imperial unit of mass in the foot-pound-second system, defined so that a force of one pound-force accelerates one slug at one foot per second squared. Slugs per cubic foot appear in engineering and fluid dynamics calculations that use imperial units consistently, since it avoids mixing pounds-mass and pounds-force in the same formula.
Why are there separate US and UK gallon density units?
A US gallon (3.785411784 litres) and an imperial (UK) gallon (4.54609 litres) are different volumes despite sharing the name 'gallon.' This means a pound per US gallon and a pound per imperial gallon represent different densities, so the converter keeps them as separate units to avoid mixing up recipes, fuel specs, or material data sourced from different countries.
How is density different from specific gravity?
Density is a mass-per-volume quantity, such as kilograms per cubic metre. Specific gravity is a unitless ratio comparing a substance's density to the density of water, so a specific gravity of 0.92 means the substance is 92% as dense as water. This converter works with density units directly rather than specific gravity ratios.
How precise are the converted results?
Conversions use exact defined factors, such as 16.018463 for pounds per cubic foot, so results are as accurate as the number of decimal places you choose to display. The precision control lets you widen or narrow that display, which helps when comparing closely matched material densities.
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