Earthwork Volume Conversions — BCY / LCY / CCY
The three volume states and the arithmetic between them — the formulas match the published textbook chain (verified against its worked examples), and the borrow example below is computed live from them. Factors are ranges from the swell/shrink chart; the states are the part people get wrong.
The three states
| State | What it is |
|---|---|
| BCY | bank: in the ground, undisturbed (how cut is usually paid) |
| LCY | loose: in the bucket and the truck (how material is hauled) |
| CCY | compacted: placed and compacted fill (how embankment is paid) |
Worked example — 1,000 CCY of fill (10% shrink, 25% swell)
| Step | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The fill the plans pay | Embankment quantity | 1,000 CCY |
| Borrow to excavate | 1,000 ÷ (1 − 0.1) | 1,111 BCY |
| Yards the trucks haul | 1,111 × (1 + 0.25) | 1,389 LCY |
The state each job function lives in
Estimators takeoff in BCY (the ground), truck bosses dispatch in LCY (the truck chart’s yards), and inspectors accept in CCY (the compacted lift). The factors that connect them live on the swell & shrink chart — with the rock exception that flips fills into exports. Geometry (how the BCY gets measured in the first place) is the cubic yard chart’s job.
Common questions
What do BCY, LCY, and CCY mean?
The three lives of the same dirt: bank cubic yards (undisturbed, in the ground — how cut is usually paid), loose cubic yards (excavated, swollen — what buckets and trucks actually handle), and compacted cubic yards (placed and rolled — how embankment is paid). The mass never changes; the volume changes twice, and every earthwork dispute starts with someone mixing the states.
How do you convert bank yards to loose yards?
Multiply by (1 + swell): 1,000 BCY of common earth at 25% swell is 1,250 LCY in the trucks. Going the other way, multiply loose by the load factor (1 ÷ 1.25 = 0.80). Compaction uses the shrink side: BCY × (1 − shrink) = CCY. The factors come from the swell/shrink chart — in ranges, because soil is not a catalog product.
How much borrow does a fill need?
Divide the compacted quantity by (1 − shrink), then swell the result for hauling: 1,000 CCY of fill at 10% shrink needs 1,111 bank yards of borrow, which becomes 1,389 loose yards on trucks at 25% swell. Three different numbers for one embankment — and three different pay conversations.
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