Hoppus

For the musician, see Mark Hoppus.

The hoppus cubic foot (or ‘hoppus cube’ or ‘h cu ft’) was the standard volume measurement used for timber in the British Empire and countries in the British sphere of influence before the introduction of metric units. It is still used in the hardwood trade of some countries. This volume measurement was developed to estimate what volume of a round log would be usable timber after processing, in effect attempting to ‘square’ the log and allows for waste. The hoppus ton (HT) was also a traditionally used unit of volume in British forestry. One hoppus ton is equal to 50 hoppus feet or 1.8027 cubic metres. Some shipments of tropical hardwoods, especially shipments of teak from Myanmar (Burma), are still stated in hoppus tons.[1]

History

The English surveyor Edward Hoppus introduced the eponymous unit in his 1736 manual of practical calculations. [2][3] The tables include reference to stone as well as timber, as stone can similarly suffer wastage during processing into regular pieces.

Calculation of timber volume in round logs

The following calculation can be used to estimate the usable timber in round logs using a "girth tape" that is calibrated in "quarter-girth inches" (e.g. that shows "12" when measuring a 48-inch-circumference log):[4]

Hoppus Volume (h ft) = ("Quarter Girth" (in))2 × Length (ft) / 144 = (circumference (ft) / 4)2 × Length (ft)

Equivalents:

See also

References

  1. Myanmar Inter Safe Co., Ltd,
  2. Dictionary of units
  3. Hoppus's Tables for Measuring, Or, Practical Measuring Made Easy By Edward Hoppus
  4. Timber commodity specifications
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 07, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.