Conversion from Cubic meters to Cubic centimeters

Information about the Cubic meter (m³)

The cubic metre is the SI unit of volume, written m³. It is the volume of a cube one metre on each side, and because the metre is a base unit, every other volume unit in the system is derived from it. It holds a thousand litres, and a cubic metre of fresh water has a mass of very nearly one tonne, which is the single most useful fact about it.

Utilities are billed in it. Domestic water meters almost everywhere record consumption in cubic metres, and a household of four uses somewhere between 100 and 200 of them a year. Natural gas is metered the same way and then converted to energy for billing, because the heat released by a cubic metre of gas depends on its composition and has to be corrected for temperature and pressure at the meter.

Construction orders materials by it. Ready-mixed concrete is sold and delivered by the cubic metre, a standard truck carrying six to eight; excavation and earthworks are priced per cubic metre moved; and sawn timber, aggregate, topsoil and bark are all traded the same way. Because a cubic metre of concrete weighs about 2.4 tonnes, the unit also decides what a lorry or a crane can carry.

Freight uses it in a more subtle way. Shipping and removals quote volume in cubic metres, and air freight charges by whichever is greater, the actual mass or a volumetric mass calculated at a fixed ratio, commonly 167 kilograms to the cubic metre. Light bulky cargo is therefore priced by the space it occupies rather than by what it weighs, and the whole calculation runs on this unit.

Environmental measurement lives here too. River flow is given in cubic metres per second, reservoir capacity in millions of cubic metres, air quality as micrograms of pollutant per cubic metre of air, and ventilation as cubic metres per hour. A room four metres by five with a ceiling at two and a half holds fifty cubic metres of air, which is the sort of figure ventilation standards are written against.

Against imperial and United States units it converts to 35.315 cubic feet or 1.308 cubic yards. The cubic yard matters most in practice, because American concrete and excavation are ordered in it, and the two units are close enough that a mistaken figure looks plausible while being a third out.

One cubic metre equals 1000 litres, about 35.315 cubic feet, about 1.308 cubic yards, or about 264.2 US gallons.

Information about the Cubic centimeter (cm³)

The cubic centimetre is a unit of volume equal to one millionth of a cubic metre, written cm³ and often abbreviated cc. It is the volume of a cube one centimetre on each side, and since the litre was redefined in 1964 it is exactly one millilitre. The two names describe the same quantity, but they belong to different trades and are not interchangeable in every context.

Engines are its most visible home. Motorcycle and small-engine displacement is quoted in cubic centimetres, so a 125, a 600 and a litre bike are named by the swept volume of their cylinders. Licence categories in much of the world are drawn on the same scale, with a 125 cc limit for learners in many European countries, which turns the unit into a legal boundary rather than a mere description.

Car engines cross over to litres at about a thousand cubic centimetres, purely for readability, so a 1998 cc engine is advertised as a two-litre. American practice used cubic inches for the same purpose well into the 1980s, and the conversion is worth knowing: 1000 cubic centimetres is 61 cubic inches, so a 350 cubic inch engine is 5.7 litres.

Medicine has deliberately retreated from the abbreviation. Syringes were once marked in cc and clinicians spoke that way, but handwritten cc can be misread as a unit symbol or as a pair of zeros, and medication safety bodies now place it on lists of abbreviations that should not be used. The instruction is to write mL instead, even though the quantity is identical.

Materials science keeps the unit for density. Grams per cubic centimetre is the standard way to state how heavy a substance is for its size: water is 1.00, aluminium 2.70, steel about 7.85, lead 11.34 and gold 19.3. Those numbers are memorable precisely because the cubic centimetre is small enough that everyday solids land between one and twenty.

Modelling and manufacturing use it for part volume. Computer-aided design reports the volume of a component in cubic centimetres, which converts directly to mass once a density is chosen and to material cost in additive manufacturing. It is the natural unit for anything that fits in a hand.

One cubic centimetre equals 1 millilitre, 1000 cubic millimetres, 0.000001 cubic metres, or about 0.061 cubic inches.