| Milliliters per second (mL/s) | Cubic inches per second (in³/s) |
|---|---|
| 1 Milliliter per second | 0.0610237440947 in³/s |
| 2 Milliliters per second | 0.122047488189 in³/s |
| 3 Milliliters per second | 0.183071232284 in³/s |
| 4 Milliliters per second | 0.244094976379 in³/s |
| 5 Milliliters per second | 0.305118720474 in³/s |
| 10 Milliliters per second | 0.610237440947 in³/s |
| 20 Milliliters per second | 1.22047488189 in³/s |
| 25 Milliliters per second | 1.52559360237 in³/s |
| 50 Milliliters per second | 3.05118720474 in³/s |
| 100 Milliliters per second | 6.10237440947 in³/s |
| Reference | Milliliters per second (mL/s) | Cubic inches per second (in³/s) |
|---|---|---|
| A domestic shower | 150 mL/s | 9.15356 in³/s |
| A kitchen tap | 166.667 mL/s | 10.1706 in³/s |
| A garden hose | 250 mL/s | 15.2559 in³/s |
| The Amazon river | 2.09 × 1011 mL/s | 1.2754 × 1010 in³/s |
The millilitre per second is a unit of volumetric flow rate equal to one millilitre of fluid passing a point every second. Its symbol is mL/s. Since a millilitre is a cubic centimetre, the unit is identical to the cubic centimetre per second, and the two names are used interchangeably depending on whether the fluid is thought of as a liquid or as a volume of space.
Volumetric flow rate is a volume divided by a time, so it has the dimensions of length cubed per second. That makes it convertible to any other flow unit by a single multiplication, and it also means that a flow rate multiplied by a duration gives the total volume delivered — the arithmetic that underlies every dosing calculation and every water bill.
A millilitre per second is a small but visible flow. A tap dripping steadily produces perhaps a tenth of this; a thin stream from a partly opened tap is a few millilitres per second; a garden hose at full flow is several hundred. In household terms it is the rate at which a teaspoon fills in about five seconds.
The unit belongs to the laboratory and to small machinery. Peristaltic pumps, dosing systems, fuel injectors and analytical instruments all work in this range, and their specifications are written in millilitres per second when the process is fast and in millilitres per minute when it is slow. Where a pump must deliver a precise quantity, the rate and the running time together define the dose.
Human physiology gives useful comparisons. Resting cardiac output is about eighty millilitres per second, urine production averages under a fiftieth of that, and saliva production is around a hundredth. The flow through a single capillary is far smaller still and is measured in cubic millimetres per hour.
Converting to the SI base unit requires care with the powers of ten. One millilitre per second is a millionth of a cubic metre per second, because a millilitre is a millionth of a cubic metre. That factor of a million between the practical unit and the base unit is why flow rates are almost never quoted in cubic metres per second outside hydrology and heavy engineering.
One millilitre per second equals 0.001 litres per second, 60 millilitres per minute, or about 0.0000353 cubic feet per second.
The cubic inch per second is a unit of volumetric flow rate equal to one cubic inch passing a point every second. Its symbol is in³/s. A cubic inch is 16.387 cubic centimetres, a little over a tablespoon, so this unit describes the modest but visible flows of imperial engineering practice.
Hydraulics is where it survives most strongly. American hydraulic pumps and cylinders are still catalogued in inches, and a cylinder's speed follows directly from the flow divided by the piston area: a 2-inch bore cylinder has an area of 3.14 square inches, so 31.4 cubic inches per second extends it at 10 inches per second. Working in inches throughout avoids converting the bore, the stroke and the flow separately.
Machining uses the same idea for material removal. A milling cutter taking a 0.1-inch depth at 0.5 inch width and 20 inches per minute of feed removes one cubic inch per minute, and a modern machining centre roughing aluminium can exceed twenty. Tool manufacturers publish removal rates in these units because their customers' machines are dimensioned that way.
Small engines and pumps carry the unit too. An engine's displacement in cubic inches, multiplied by its speed, gives the air it swallows: a 350 cubic inch V8 at 3,000 revolutions per minute ingests 525,000 cubic inches a minute, or about 8,750 per second, ideal efficiency assumed. The old American habit of naming engines by cubic inches is the same measurement standing still rather than flowing.
Metering and dispensing in imperial industries follow. Adhesive dispensers, lubricators and grease systems on American plant are specified in cubic inches per second or per minute, and a shot of grease from an automatic lubricator is quoted in cubic inches per cycle, which the cycle time converts into a rate.
For a sense of scale, 61 cubic inches per second is about a litre per second, and one cubic inch per second fills a US gallon in a little under four minutes. That is roughly the rate of a garden tap opened a quarter turn, which makes the unit easy to picture despite its unfamiliarity outside the imperial trades.
One cubic inch per second equals about 16.39 cubic centimetres per second, 0.01639 litres per second, or about 0.2597 US gallons per minute.