Density of a tanker truck

Question

You are on the management team of a company that is considering purchasing a tanker truck. The truck you want has a volume of 24,000 liters and an empty mass/weight of 15,300 kg. However, the route you wish to travel has a bridge with a weight limit of 25 tons. If you purchase the truck and fill it to capacity with a liquid whose density is 0.85 kg/L, what will the mass of the truck be?

Answer 1

So Kristy M.,

Not sure what the question really is there. For the mass, just multiply the volume by the liquid density (L * kg/L)= kg., then add the tare (empty) truck weight. What else were you planning to do?

You might want to also convert to tons, to answer the "background" question implicit here -- would you overload the bridge?

You might not, but the loaded truck certainly would!

P.S. You might want to look up "load factors" for bridges. Usually there is some safety factor built in. But I'd hate to "test it out" with a tank truck full of fuel.

P.S. Might point out, when a certain interstate bridge (Tobin) just north of Boston was newly constructed (1973), a 10-ton truck (load limit 20,000 lbs!) carrying gravel crashed into a bridge pillar and collapsed the upper bridge deck, which caused the bridge to be shut for 2 months for repairs. The truck had load estimated at 60,000 lbs. Guess someone hadn't converted correctly from kg??

-- Cheers, --Mr. d.