Convert yd³ to m³ cubic yards ↔ cubic metres Free Online Secure
Type a value in cubic yards and read it in cubic metres at once. The factor is exact by definition, the arithmetic happens in your browser, and nothing is sent anywhere.
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Common values — Convert yd³ to m³ (cubic yards ↔ cubic metres)
| yd³ | m³ |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.764554857984 |
| 2 | 1.529109715968 |
| 3 | 2.293664573952 |
| 5 | 3.82277428992 |
| 10 | 7.64554857984 |
| 20 | 15.29109715968 |
| 50 | 38.2277428992 |
| 100 | 76.4554857984 |
Where these units come from
The litre has an awkward history. From 1901 it was defined as the volume of one kilogram of pure water at its densest, which sounds elegant but came out at 1.000028 cubic decimetres — close enough to be confusing and far enough to spoil careful work. In 1964 the definition was abandoned and the litre became exactly one cubic decimetre, which it has been ever since. The gallon has a messier story still: the US gallon descends from the English wine gallon of 231 cubic inches, while Britain redefined its own in 1824 as the volume of ten pounds of water. Nobody reconciled the two, so a US gallon is 3.785411784 litres and an imperial gallon 4.54609 — about a fifth larger. The gallon, pint, cup, fluid ounce and spoons on this page are the US ones.
Where you meet them
Millilitres and litres run through daily life almost invisibly: bottles, fuel, paint, dosage, the capacity of a kettle. Cubic metres belong to water bills, concrete, shipping and the air a ventilation system has to move. Cubic centimetres name engine displacement, cubic feet appear in freight and in appliance capacities, and cups and spoons live almost entirely in recipes — which is exactly where the difference between a US cup and a metric one quietly ruins a cake.
Questions people ask
Where is the cubic yard used?
For bulk materials in the United States and Britain: concrete, soil, sand and gravel are sold by the cubic yard. It is 27 cubic feet, or exactly 764.554857984 litres, so a cubic yard is about three quarters of a cubic metre. A common mistake is to treat it as three cubic feet, when it is three feet in each direction.
How many litres are in a cubic metre?
1000, since a cubic metre is a cube of ten decimetres on each side, and a litre is one cubic decimetre. A cubic metre of water weighs about a tonne. Water and gas consumption are billed in cubic metres, and a bath of 150 litres is therefore 0.15 of one.
Is the answer exact?
Where both units are defined in terms of one another by whole numbers, yes — the page says so above the figure, and the only rounding is in how many digits are shown. Where the ratio has no finite decimal, the page shows twelve significant digits and says the relation is approximate rather than pretending otherwise.
Does anything I type leave my device?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no server to upload it to. Load the page once and it keeps working with the network switched off.
Dams, canals and landfills: reading American project volumes in cubic metres
The Hoover Dam holds about 3.25 million cubic yards of concrete. A harbour dredging contract may be announced as 2 million cubic yards. A landfill is licensed for 5 million. Public works in the United States are described in cubic yards, but engineers, journalists and students elsewhere compare them with figures in cubic metres. To convert yd³ to m³, multiply by 0.764555: 1 yd³ is 0.7646 m³, 100 yd³ is 76.46 m³ and 3.25 million yd³ is 2.485 million m³. The calculator above multiplies as you type, and the sections below show what the numbers mean for big civil projects.
You will find the rule with worked examples, a short profile of each unit, a comparison, a long set of cases from public works, mining and waste, and the slips to avoid. The arithmetic runs in your browser, and what you enter is not sent anywhere.
How to convert yd³ to m³: multiply by 0.764555
The rule
A yard is exactly 0.9144 metres, so a cubic yard is 0.9144 cubed, which is 0.764555 cubic metres. To convert yd³ to m³, multiply the cubic yards by 0.764555. So 2 yd³ is 1.529 m³, 15 yd³ is 11.47 m³ and 0.25 yd³ is 0.191 m³. To go back, multiply cubic metres by 1.30795.
Worked examples
A tanker body of 25 yd³ holds 19.1 m³. A dredging job of 2 million yd³ moves 1.529 million m³. A pit permit of 500,000 yd³ allows 382,277 m³. A trench of 889 yd³ is 680 m³, and a wind turbine foundation of 400 yd³ is 306 m³.
What the factor tells you
A cubic yard is roughly three quarters of a cubic metre, so the metric figure is always about 24 per cent smaller. A reader who sees a figure in cubic yards and wants a metric feel can think of three quarters and add a small correction.
A quick sanity test
The result must be smaller than the original number. If it is larger, you divided instead of multiplying.
The cubic yard
A cube three feet on each side
The cubic yard is a customary US unit of 27 cubic feet. Government agencies, contractors and landfill operators use it in bid documents, permits and annual reports, often abbreviated CY, cu yd or yd³.
Where it appears
Bid tabulations, environmental permits, dredging notices and mine production reports.
The cubic metre
The SI unit of volume
The cubic metre is the volume of a cube of one metre on each side. It is the unit of design, trade and research outside the US and in science everywhere, and the basis for tank charts, standards and international contracts.
Where it appears
Technical standards, tenders, academic papers and international statistics.
Cubic yards against cubic metres
One cubic yard is 0.7646 cubic metres, so a million yards is about 765,000 metres. A reader who treats the two as equal overstates the metric size of an American project by almost a third, which matters when comparing the cost per unit across countries.
The factor follows exactly from the definition of the yard, so the conversion has no uncertainty of its own.
Where the conversion shows up
Dredging and harbours
Port authorities often announce maintenance dredging in cubic yards: a project of 2 million yd³ means 1.529 million m³. A hopper dredger carrying 5,000 yd³ moves 3,823 m³ per trip. Environmental permits set limits in yards, while foreign contractors bidding for the work need to quote in metres, so the “convert yd³ to m³” calculation step turns up in the first week of a tender.
Landfills and waste
A landfill licensed for 5 million yd³ of airspace offers 3.82 million m³. A rear-loading refuse truck of 25 yd³ holds 19.1 m³ and compacts waste several times over. Density of compacted waste is often around 0.6 to 0.9 tons per cubic yard, which is roughly 0.7 to 1.1 tonnes per cubic metre, so volume and weight reports differ by this factor.
Concrete and dams
The Hoover Dam used about 3.25 million yd³ of concrete, or 2.485 million m³. A modern wind turbine foundation may need on the order of 400 yd³, which is 306 m³. A runway of 10,000 by 150 feet with an 18 inch slab uses about 83,333 yd³, or 63,700 m³.
The Panama Canal
American engineers excavated roughly 230 million cubic yards of earth and rock to build the Panama Canal in the early twentieth century. That is about 176 million cubic metres. Records vary because the volume included slides and re-excavation. Historians quote the figure in yards, and anyone who wants to compare it with the Suez Canal or modern dredging projects in metres needs the “convert yd³ to m³” calculation step.
Airports
A runway of 10,000 by 150 feet with an 18-inch concrete slab uses 83,333 yd³ of concrete, equal to about 63,700 m³. A taxiway system may double that. Airport authorities in the US write specifications in cubic yards and the FAA documents use feet, so a foreign contractor bidding for the job needs a reliable convert yd³ to m³ routine before pricing.
Levees and flood control
A levee of 10 miles with a cross-section of 600 square feet contains 3.17 million ft³ per mile, which is 117,000 yd³ per mile, or about 90,000 m³. A ten-mile levee needs 900,000 m³. After a flood, emergency repairs are often reported in cubic yards of fill placed, and agencies measure progress each day in these numbers.
Soil swell and shrink
Excavated soil swells and then shrinks again when compacted. A cubic yard in place may become 1.25 yd³ loose, and 0.9 yd³ when compacted in an embankment. American estimates use bank, loose and compacted cubic yards, abbreviated BCY, LCY and CCY, so the unit in a table has to be matched with the state of the soil before you convert it to metres.
Bid prices per cubic yard
Public bids list unit prices such as 12 dollars per cubic yard of excavation. In cubic metres the price is 12 divided by 0.764555, which is 15.70 dollars. A price of 60 dollars per cubic yard of concrete becomes 78.48 dollars per cubic metre. Conversions of price run opposite to conversions of volume, because a larger unit costs more.
Spreadsheet formulas
Place yards in column A and use =A2*0.764555 in column B. For the reverse, use =B2*1.30795. Create a separate column for the unit price and divide by 0.764555 to convert price per cubic yard into price per cubic metre. Keep the original data intact in its own sheet, so that an audit trail remains.
Abbreviations you will meet
American reports write cubic yards as CY, cu yd, cu. yd., yd³ or sometimes just yd when the context is obvious. BCY and LCY mean bank and loose cubic yards, and MCY means million cubic yards. Always check what the table header says before you run a “convert yd³ to m³” calculation on the numbers beneath.
Rounding and precision
The factor 0.764555 has six significant figures, which suits any engineering use. Reports on millions of yards are typically accurate to three figures, so 2,000,000 yd³ becomes 1.53 million m³ and not 1,529,110 m³. Over-precise conversions give an impression of accuracy the source does not have.
A mental shortcut
Take three quarters of the yard figure and add two per cent. For 100 yd³, three quarters is 75, and two per cent of that is 1.5, so the answer is 76.5 against the exact 76.46. For 2,000 yd³ you get 1,500 plus 30, which is 1,530, against 1,529. A quick estimate like this is enough to follow a news story.
A picture to keep in mind
Imagine a refuse truck body of 25 yd³. In metric terms it is about 19 m³, roughly a small room 3 by 2.5 by 2.5 metres. If your “convert yd³ to m³” calculation answer implies a truck the size of a house, check the arithmetic, since you may have multiplied by the wrong factor.
Reference ladder
1 yd³ is 0.765 m³. 10 yd³ is 7.65 m³. 100 yd³ is 76.5 m³. 1,000 yd³ is 765 m³. 10,000 yd³ is 7,646 m³. 100,000 yd³ is 76,456 m³. 1,000,000 yd³ is 764,555 m³. A ladder like this helps spot a wrong power of ten in a press release.
The acre-foot
US water agencies measure reservoir volumes in acre-feet. One acre-foot is 43,560 ft³, which is 1,613 yd³ or 1,233.5 m³. A detention pond of 3 acre-feet therefore holds 4,840 yd³, or 3,700 m³. When a flood-control report gives both units, the conversion between yards and metres follows the same factor as in any other volume.
Checking by reversing
To check any convert yd³ to m³ result, multiply it by 1.30795 and see whether you arrive back at the start. If 100 yd³ became 76.46 m³, then 76.46 times 1.30795 gives 100.0. A second test is the size of the number: the cubic metre figure should be about three quarters of the yard figure.
Short tons and tonnes
US documents give weights in short tons of 2,000 pounds, which is 907 kg. A report that says 1.5 tons per cubic yard means 1,361 kg per 0.7646 m³, or 1.78 tonnes per cubic metre. Conversions of density therefore need two factors, one for volume and one for mass, and mixing them is a common source of error in international reports.
Stormwater basins
A retention basin that must hold the runoff from a 25-year storm over 40 acres at 2 inches of rain needs about 290,000 ft³, which is 10,700 yd³, or 8,200 m³. US stormwater manuals use acre-feet and cubic feet, but permit applications may require cubic yards for excavation. A foreign consultant reviewing the plans will usually convert everything to cubic metres first.
Rail and quarry output
A quarry that sells 1.2 million tons of stone a year at 1.4 tons per cubic yard moves about 857,000 yd³, which is 655,000 m³. A trainload of aggregate holds around 10,000 tons, or roughly 7,100 yd³. Rail firms measure by tons and quarries often by yards, and the conversion works through density.
Reading the news
Stories about floods, landslides and oil spills quote volumes in yards or gallons. A landslide that dumps 500,000 yd³ of earth onto a road has displaced 382,000 m³. Reporters rarely convert, but readers in other countries find the metric figure easier to compare with local events, and a quick convert yd³ to m³ gives them a sense of scale.
Student projects
A student comparing the volumes of ancient monuments might find the Great Pyramid listed as 2.6 million m³, while an American source gives 3.4 million yd³. The conversion shows they agree within rounding: 3.4 million yd³ is 2.6 million m³. It is a neat way to see the factor at work and to test understanding of how cubic units scale.
Pipeline trenches
A trench 1,000 feet long, 4 feet wide and 6 feet deep removes 24,000 ft³ of soil, or 889 yd³, which is 680 m³. The pipe and bedding occupy part of that, and the rest is backfilled. Utility contracts pay by the linear foot, but the haulage of surplus soil is paid by the yard, so a bid tabulation mixes the two kinds of unit.
Road base and asphalt
A mile of 24-foot wide road with an 8-inch aggregate base needs 3,129 yd³, or 2,392 m³. A 2-inch asphalt surface needs 782 yd³, which is 598 m³, and weighs about 1,390 tonnes at 2.32 tonnes per cubic metre. Highway departments buy asphalt in tons and aggregate in cubic yards, so a quantity take-off carries both units in one table.
Mine haul trucks and draglines
A large mine haul truck body may carry on the order of 100 to 200 yd³, which is 76 to 153 m³. The bucket of the Big Muskie dragline, one of the largest ever built, held 220 yd³, or 168 m³. Operators and equipment makers in the US give capacities in yards, while mining companies elsewhere report in metres, so fleet comparisons start with a conversion.
Sand and gravel pits
A permit that allows extraction of 500,000 yd³ of gravel permits 382,277 m³. At a rate of 50,000 yd³ per year, the pit lasts ten years, which is 38,228 m³ annually. Local authorities in the US write conditions in cubic yards, while neighbours' consultants in Europe measure environmental impact in cubic metres or tonnes, and the “convert yd³ to m³” calculation step puts them on one page.
Contaminated soil clean-up
A site remediation that removes 10,000 yd³ of contaminated soil takes away 7,646 m³. At around 1.5 short tons per cubic yard, the weight is roughly 15,000 tons. Disposal is priced per ton, handling per cubic yard, and a conversion error in either direction changes the budget by tens of thousands of dollars.
Refuse trucks and containers
A front-loader dumpster of 4 yd³ holds 3.06 m³, and one of 8 yd³ holds 6.1 m³. A rear-loader truck body of 25 yd³ holds 19.1 m³. A route that picks up 400 containers of 4 yd³ handles 1,600 yd³ per day, which is 1,223 m³. Waste planners compare routes by volume per hour, so unit conversion is part of every comparison.
Wind farm foundations
A turbine foundation may require 400 yd³ of concrete, or 306 m³. A farm of 50 turbines needs 20,000 yd³, which is 15,291 m³. Concrete is poured over weeks, with about 40 truckloads of 10 yd³ for a single foundation if the pour is continuous. Developers working in several countries need one set of units in their records, and metres are the usual choice.
More values for convert yd³ to m³
A longer list of conversions
If the value you need is not in the first list, these further conversions may be close enough to read off directly:
- 0.1 yd³ = 0.0764555 m³
- 0.5 yd³ = 0.382277428992 m³
- 3 yd³ = 2.293664573952 m³
- 4 yd³ = 3.058219431936 m³
- 7 yd³ = 5.351884005888 m³
- 15 yd³ = 11.46832286976 m³
- 20 yd³ = 15.29109715968 m³
- 75 yd³ = 57.3416143488 m³
- 200 yd³ = 152.9109715968 m³
- 500 yd³ = 382.277428992 m³
- 2,000 yd³ = 1,529.109715968 m³
- 10,000 yd³ = 7,645.54857984 m³
Common slips when you convert yd³ to m³
Using 0.9144
0.9144 is the length factor. For volume use its cube, 0.764555.
Dividing instead of multiplying
The cubic metre is the larger unit, so the number must shrink. If 100 yd³ became 130.8, you divided.
Ignoring the state of the material
Bank, loose and compacted yards are different quantities. Convert them only after you know which one the report means.
Short answers
How many cubic metres are in a cubic yard?
0.764555.
How do I convert yd³ to m³?
Multiply by 0.764555.
How many cubic yards are in a cubic metre?
1.30795.
How much is 100 yd³ in cubic metres?
76.46 m³.
Does my number leave my device?
No, the calculation runs in your browser.
More pages and a wrap-up
For other volume conversions see Convert yd³ to ft³, Convert ft³ to m³, Convert L to m³, Convert m³ to mm³, Convert km to mi, Convert mi to km, Convert °C to °F, Convert °F to °C, Convert km/L to MPG (US). The reverse direction is Convert m³ to yd³.
In short, a “convert yd³ to m³” calculation means multiplying by 0.764555 and writing the unit beside the answer. Your number is computed locally, with no account and no upload.