VOL. 3 0 , N o .

9 , NOVEMBER, 1949 319

The Calculation of Air Density in Various Units *

NELSON R . WILLIAMS
U. S. Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyo kern, California

IR density enters into many important Law, the density p can be computed from:

A problems in meteorology, related sciences,

and engineering. For example, at the
Naval Ordnance Test Station, knowledge of air
p = (p - 0.37Se)/RdT
= C(p - 0.37Se)/T « C(p - Vse)/T, (1)
density is necessary for determining the drag co-
where p is total pressure of the air, e is partial
efficient of a missile and correction curves for the
pressure of water vapor, Rd is the gas constant for
refraction of light in the atmosphere. The me-
dry air = 2.870 X 106 ergs/gm °K, T is the abso-
teorologist, in his increasing contact with other
lute temperature ( ° K ) of the air, and the constant
scientists and industrial engineers, often is called
C is a combination of 1 /Rd and the factor neces-
upon to calculate air density in units other than
sary for conversion to the particular unit desired.
those used in meteorology. He is then confronted
The value given for Rd agrees very well with the
by the necessity of laboriously working out con-
experiment. The accuracy of humidity measure-
version factors to compute the desired density,
ments does not justify carrying beyond the third
since meteorologists commonly do not use density
decimal place the factor by which e is multiplied.
directly as a parameter, and therefore the formu-
From the definition of the mixing ratio w, the
las in the meteorology textbooks usually have to
vapor pressure can be expressed by
be solved explicitly for the density, and the con-
stants evaluated according to the units of meas- pw
urement. Therefore, the preparation of a table 6 = 0.622 + w '
with conversion factors for computing density in
various units was thought to be required. Substituting this value for e in (1) :
For the purpose of density calculations dry air
from sea level to at least 50 km (31 miles) may be p - c p ( l - 0.378
considered a uniform mixture of gases having a
constant percentage by mass of the main con- Since w rarely exceeds 0.03 and the humidity
stituents, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, and Carbon correction is always small, w in the denominator
Dioxide f [1-4]. In fact, the National Advisory can be neglected in comparison with 0.622. The
Committee for Aeronautics, in preparing tentative resulting equation, which is sufficiently exact for
tables for the upper atmosphere, assumes that density calculations, is:
variations in chemical composition are too small
to have an appreciable effect upon the computa- p = Cp( 1 - 0.61 w)/T.
tion of density and pressure below altitudes of
If w is expressed in grams of water vapor per
80 km (50 miles) in the daytime and 105 km (65
kilogram of dry air,
miles) at night. Above these levels the dissocia-
tion of oxygen molecules by solar radiation must p = Cp( 1 - 0.00061W)/r
be considered. The percentages of other gases, » cp( 1 - 6 X 10-*w)/T. (2)
such as Neon, Helium, Krypton, and Hydrogen
are so small that they may be disregarded in TABLE I gives the values of the C factor for
density computations. The amount of Carbon computing densities in different units. The tem-
Dioxide varies slightly, but this does not alter the perature T must always be in °K. By taking the
density significantly. appropriate ratio of the C factors, the table can
also be used to convert a given density from one
FORMULAS "USED unit to another. The C factor for the slugs/ft3
Reference to standard textbooks [2, 5] shows unit is based upon the standard sea-level accelera-
that by use of the Perfect Gas Law and Dalton's tion of gravity, 32.174 ft/sec 2 , at latitude 45°.
* The opinions and assertions contained herein are the
private ones of the writer and are not to be construed as EXAMPLES
official, or reflecting the view of the Navy Department or
the Naval Service at large. Example 1.—Radiosonde measurements at lati-
t N o allowance is made for local contamination, such
as from industrial fumes.
tude 45° and altitude 5,000 feet above mean sea

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320 BULLETIN AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

TABLE I. CALCULATION OF A I R DENSITY IN V A R I O U S UNITS

P = C(p- 0.37Se)/T « C(p - He)/Tf

or p = Q>(1 - 0.00061w)/r « Cp( 1 - 6 X 1 0 ~ % ) / T , (w in gm/kg).

Temperature in ° K C factor to get density in:

Pressure in: gm/cm 3 gm/liter or kg/m 3 gm/m3 lbs/ft 3

slugs/ft 3
("weight density")

Dynes/cm 2 (baryes) 3.484 X 10~7 3.484 X IO"4 3.484 X 10" 1 2.175 X 10~5 6.760 X IO"7
Millibars 3.484 X IO"4 3.484 X 10" 1 3.484 X 102 2.175 X IO"2 6.760 X IO"4
(1 mb = 1,000 dynes/cm 2 )
M m Mercury (0°C) 4.645 X IO"4 4.645 X 10" 1 4.645 X 102 2.900 X IO"2 9.013 X IO"4
Inches Mercury (32°F) 1.180 X IO"2 1.180 X 10 1.180 X 104 7.367 X 10"1 2.290 X 10~2
Lbs/inch 2 2.402 X IO"2 2.402 X 10 2.402 X 104 1.500 4.661 X IO"2
Atmospheres 3.530 X 10" 1 3.530 X 102 3.530 X 105 1.204 X 10 6.850 X 10"1

level show: pressure 850 mb, temperature 20°C is then:

and mixing ratio 10 gm/kg. In order to calculate
a drag coefficient, the air density, in slugs/ft 3 ,
must be known. Solution:
p = (6.760 X IO"4) X 850(1 - 0.00061 X 10)/293
= (1.9611 X IO"3) X 0.9939
= 1.9491 X 10"3 slugs/ft 3 .
The quantity 1.9611 X 10~3 is the density of dry
air, and this must be multiplied by the factor
0.9939 to obtain the density of moist air. Even
with the relatively high moisture content of 10
gm/kg, the effect of the water vapor on the density
changes the third digit only slightly. Therefore
in many practical problems the moisture term can
be neglected. Actually, the accuracies of most
observations do not justify carrying the density
calculations beyond the third figure. In this par-
ticular example the results were carried out to
five places for comparison purposes only. The
factor 6.760 X 10~4 was computed using the stand-
ard sea-level acceleration of gravity at 45°, namely
32.174 ft/sec 2 . If the value for gravity at 5,000
feet were used, the calculated density would be
slightly greater, but the correction is insignificant
compared to observational errors. However, cer-
tain types of problems, such as the computation
of a standard atmosphere to high altitudes, require
corrections for the variation of gravity with lati-
tude and altitude.
Example 2.—Compute the density of air at the
standard sea-level pressure of 760 mm mercury
and standard temperature of 15°C, but with a
relative humidity of 90%. Solution:—From TA-
BLE 85 of the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables
[6], the vapor pressure is 11.5 mm. The vapor
pressure can also be obtained from psychrometric
slide rules, graphs, or other tables. The density
p = 4.645 X 10-4(760 - 0.378 X 11.5)/288.18
= 1.218 X 10~3 gm/cm 3 = 1.218 gm/liter or
kg/m 3 .
The density of dry air at this temperature and
pressure is 1.225 X 10-3 gm/cm 3 . Thus, even
with a relative humidity of 90%, the effect of
water vapor on the density is very small at this
temperature.
Example 3.—The density of dry air at 1 at-
mosphere pressure and 0°C is 1.293 X 10~3 gm/
cm3. What is the density (strictly speaking, the
"weight density") in pounds per cubic foot. So-
lution :—
2 2 0 4 V 10
3.530 X 1 0 - ' • a ^ X l O - * ) = 0.0807 lbs/ft*.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The assistance of Miss Louise C. Lener and Mr.
Frederick Schuett in checking the calculations is
gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES
[1] Paneth, F. A., Quart. Jr. of Royal Met. Soc., v. 65,
1939, p. 304.
[2] Berry, F. A., Bollay, E., Beers, N. R., Handbook of
Meteorology. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1945.
[3] Warfield, C. N., Tentative Tables for the Proper-
ties of the Upper Atmosphere. NACA Technical
Note No. 1200. National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics, Washington, 1947.
[4] Grimminger, G., Analysis of Temperature, Pressure,
and Density of the Atmosphere Extending to Ex-
treme Altitudes. Rand Corp., Santa Monica, Calif.,
[5] Holmboe, J., Forsythe, G. E., and Gustin, W . , Dy-
namic Meteorology. J. Wiley, N. Y., 1945.
[6] Smithsonian Meteorological Tables. Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, 5th Revised Edition, 1939.

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