FabPulseSteel weight calculator
Kg per metre and total weight for the sections UK fabricators actually buy. Mild steel, stainless and aluminium.
Working out steel for a quote? FabPulse does this automatically for the whole job, straight off the enquiry and drawings, priced at your own rates. Try it free.
Common mild steel SHS weights
| Size | Approx kg/m | Approx kg per 7.5 m length |
|---|
Calculated with the sharp corner approximation below. Catalogue values from your stockholder differ by a percent or two because real sections have radiused corners.
How the weights are worked out
Steel weight is cross sectional area multiplied by density. This calculator uses the standard fabricator approximations:
| SHS and RHS | area = 2t(w + h) − 4t² |
| CHS (tube) | area = πt(D − t) |
| Flat bar | area = w × t |
| Equal and unequal angle | area = t(a + b − t) |
| Round bar | area = πd² ÷ 4 |
| Square bar | area = d² |
| Sheet and plate | weight = length × width × thickness × density |
Densities used: mild steel 7850 kg/m³, stainless 7900 kg/m³, aluminium 2710 kg/m³. Good enough for ordering, estimating transport and pricing galvanising, which is usually charged by the tonne.
Built by a fabrication shop, not a software company
This calculator is a free tool from FabPulse, the quoting programme we built inside our own fab shop. It reads your enquiry emails and drawings, does the take off, prices work from your own steel prices and labour rates, and tracks win rate, margins and workload with no extra data entry.