Estimating the spill radius of 10 tons of soft sand.

[epsilonGreedy]

I am due to take delivery of 10 tons of soft sand onto an area of old lawn. In order to keep the sand clean and the worms out I need to put down some thin wooden sheet plus PVC. Will the load spill much beyond a 2.4m radius?

[joe90]

Depends on how wet or dry it is (ha dry?) also depends how good/accurate the driver is, I would make it bigger if it were me, you could even put a row of blocks around the edge (under the poly) to retain a little. It will be the width of the truck plus “fall” so I would guess more than 2.4 wide!

[Jeremy Harris]

You can work it out from the angle of repose ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_repose ).  For fine, dry, sand this is around 34°, for wet sand it's about 45°.  I'd aim at about 30°, determine the volume (density of dry sand is about 1.6 tonnes/m³), work out the size of the cone from the angle of repose and the volume, then use that to determine the diameter of the base.

[SteamyTea]

V = 1/3π.r^2.h

Assume an angle of 30°

 

[epsilonGreedy]

15 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 if it were me, you could even put a row of blocks around the edge (under the poly) to retain a little. 

 

 

A top tip. I have far more pvc to hand than thin sheet board, so I will create a much larger perimeter with blocks and then post delivery I can reshape the pile into a tighter perimeter. 

[PeterW]

6.5 cubic metres of sand will form a pile 3.5m wide and 2.5m or so long and roughly rectangular as it will flow off the back of the wagon. 
 

It will also get blown everywhere .....

 

Consider the price differential with buying bulk bags (all at the same time) and you buy yourself the ability to keep it all clean and contained. You’ll need 12 bags - even if it’s £30 a bag rather than £15 a tonne, you will save a lot of money and hassle in the long run. 

[Mr Punter]

If it is loose it is OK on a nice concrete base but a pain if it is not on a clean surface.  Bricklayer will not thank you for mud and stones in the mortar.  Even worse if it is used for render.  I do find it much easier to shovel from a concrete slab than digging from a bag though.

[epsilonGreedy]

4 hours ago, PeterW said:

6.5 cubic metres of sand will form a pile 3.5m wide and 2.5m or so long and roughly rectangular as it will flow off the back of the wagon. 
 

 

Ok I will need to increase the dimensions of the delivery catchment area. Thanks.

 

4 hours ago, PeterW said:

Consider the price differential with buying bulk bags (all at the same time) and you buy yourself the ability to keep it all clean and contained. You’ll need 12 bags - even if it’s £30 a bag rather than £15 a tonne, you will save a lot of money and hassle in the long run. 

 

 

Some quick sums indicate that would add £300 to £400 to my build cost assuming zero loss from a 10 ton bulk heap. So far in my build I have usually found a secondary use of any mucky sand left over at the periphery of the pile.

 

The main thing swaying me towards bulk delivery is that I can order direct from the quarry 9 miles away and so maintain colour consistency throughout the build particularly as I will be using white cement to create a sand/caramel colour mortar.

[Roundtuit]

3 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

If it is loose it is OK on a nice concrete base but a pain if it is not on a clean surface.  Bricklayer will not thank you for mud and stones in the mortar.  Even worse if it is used for render.  I do find it much easier to shovel from a concrete slab than digging from a bag though.

My brickies spread the best part of a tonne of my (first) 10t heap around the base of the heap/mixing area so that they had a 'clean' area to work on...  Not a biggie in the scheme of things, but better to order a bit more than you think you'll need I think!   I also used a local quarry and white cement, so couldn't deviate once things were rolling.