Volume of Excavation

[McVities]

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out the volume of an excavation. I could use other methods, but I am going to try to do this one in AutoCAD.

I know what the current surface is and what the final excavated surface will look like. If I could create these two surfaces then join them to find the volume in the middle, I would have what I want. So what commands/methods are best used to create these surfaces and then determine the volume?

Feel free to link and online articles, etc. that might help me with this.

Thanks,

McVities

 

[OnTheJob]

You need to get urself a earthworks design package. I'm using Technocad. one can create upto 9 surfaces

 

[Maury]

AutoDesk's Land Development Desktop can probably do what you want, but you're asking way to much of basic AutoCad.

 

[JStephen]

If you have contour lines drawn, you can measure areas in them and integrate the area to find volume.

 

[dimjim]

Possibly you could rotate the axis 90 degrees and
start finding the area at different z depths at
a constant interval. Use 1/2 of the two areas per
each z depth and sum them.

 

[chicopee]

dimjim has one of the method; my approach to an excavated hole would be to draw an area as a closed polyline representing the surface elevation of the hole, then extrude the hole depthwise with a taper. Do an inquiry for volume of the solid.
If the hole is not flat bottom and somehat rounded, union a sphere with the above solid at the center line of that sphere to get your hole shape then do an inquiry.
If it is a trench make a rectangular solid box and do an inquiry.
All values will be approximate which you would get with any of the program mentioned above anyway.
i