Dimensional Weight

Date: 08/02/99 at 16:27:17
From: Dianna Corcoran
Subject: How to calculate dim weight?

Is there more than one way to calculate dim weight (dimensional 
weight)? I have used length x width x height divided by 194. Is this 
correct? Is there another way to do this? Someone told me that there 
was an 'air dim weight' and that there was also a 'ground dim weight'. 
Is this correct? Thanks for your help.

Di

Date: 08/02/99 at 18:37:20
From: Doctor Rick
Subject: Re: how to calculate dim weight?

Hi, Diana.

This was new to me, so I looked it up on the Web. Here is a page on 
the UPS Web site that explains their formulas for calculating shipping 
charges.

   http://www.ups.com/using/services/packaging/dimwt-guide.html   

It says that this is a standard used throughout the air freight 
industry. It also lists a different factor (166 instead of 194) for 
international shipments and a metric formula as well. I hope this 
provides the information you need.

Apparently the formula is based on a "standard" density (weight per 
unit volume) for packages, namely 1/194 pound per cubic inch (for 
domestic packages). I was curious so I worked out the density of 
water, and it is just about exactly 7 times this density. So the 
shipping industry evidently settled on a standard density for packages 
of 1/7 the density of water. The international factor, 1/166, is about 
1/6 the density of water. In the metric system, the density of water 
is an even 1 gram (1/1000 kg) per cubic centimeter, so the 
(international) dimensional weight factor is an even 6000. I imagine 
the metric formula was established first.

- Doctor Rick, The Math Forum
  http://mathforum.org/dr.math/