Square Bar Weight Calculator

From solid to hollow square bars, this handy weight calculator makes it simple to calculate the weight of square bar stock in various materials.

Although the calculator is quick and easy to use, we’ve included a step-by-step user guide below the calculator to show you how to complete your calculation. You’ll also find a series of handy tutorials at the end of this article showing how to manually calculate the weight of both solid and hollow square bar stock without using the calculator.

Square Bar Weight Calculator:

Select a Square Profile Type:

Please enter all dimensions above.

Disclaimer: The weights shown in the above calculator are for guidance only and should not form the basis of any calculations where precise or accurate information is required. It isn’t uncommon for theoretical material weights and densities to vary considerably from actual weights and densities, for example, due to differences in manufacturing processes and material compositions. Therefore, you should obtain relevant, accurate information from manufacturers if exact weight calculations are required.

How to Use the Square Bar Weight Calculator

The calculator supports two main profile types including solid square bars and hollow square bar sections, and you can choose these using the ‘Select a Square Profile Type’ dropdown in box (1).
Regardless of the profile type chosen, you can choose from a wide range of material types for your calculation using the ‘Square Bar Material’ dropdown in box (2). The following materials are available:

Stainless Steel
- Stainless Steel – Type 301
- Stainless Steel – Type 302
- Stainless Steel – Type 303
- Stainless Steel – Type 304
- Stainless Steel – Type 309
- Stainless Steel – Type 310
- Stainless Steel – Type 316
- Stainless Steel – Type 321
- Stainless Steel – Type 409
- Stainless Steel – Type 410
- Stainless Steel – Type 416
- Stainless Steel – Type 420
- Stainless Steel – Type 430
- Stainless Steel – Type 440
Other Steel
- Mild Steel
Aluminum
- Aluminum 1050
- Aluminum 2011
- Aluminum 2014
- Aluminum 5083
- Aluminum 5251
- Aluminum 5754
- Aluminum 6061
- Aluminum 6063
- Aluminum 6082
- Aluminum 7075
Other Metals
- Brass
- Bronze
- Copper
- Titanium
The ‘Density’ boxes will automatically be populated based on material type you choose.

You can update the ‘Density’ figures if needed, although these are based on average industry figures for each type of material. If you’re using a specific type of material and you know the density, we’d recommend using the actual figure to improve the accuracy of your calculation.

Depending on the square bar profile you are using in your calculation, you’ll need to enter various dimensions, for example, ‘Length’, ‘Width’, or ‘Thickness’ to name a few.

The calculator is programmed to automatically reformat depending on your chosen square bar profile, so you’ll only see the relevant dimensions for your particular calculation/square bar profile type.

The calculator supports several unit types from metric millimeters to imperial feet, and you can choose these using the ‘Unit’ dropdown beside each dimension input field.

Note: If you choose ‘inch’ as a unit, you’ll need to use either whole or decimal numbers instead of fractions. For example, 0.25 instead of ¹/₄.

Click the button below to view a table of common square bar dimensions as decimals that you can use in the calculator:

Square Bar Weight Calculator – Inch to Decimal Conversion Table
1/8	0.125	1-9/16	1.5625	3-5/8	3.625
5/32	0.15625	1-5/8	1.625	3-11/16	3.6875
3/16	0.1875	1-11/16	1.6875	3-3/4	3.75
7/32	0.21875	1-3/4	1.75	3-13/16	3.8125
1/4	0.25	1-13/16	1.8125	3-7/8	3.875
9/32	0.28125	1-7/8	1.875	3-15/16	3.9375
5/16	0.1325	1-15/16	1.9375	4	4.00
11/32	0.34375	2	2.00	4-1/8	4.125
3/8	0.375	2-1/16	2.0625	4-3/16	4.1875
13/32	0.40625	2-1/8	2.125	4-1/4	4.25
7/16	0.4375	2-3/16	2.1875	4-5/16	4.3125
15/16	0.9375	2-1/4	2.25	4-3/8	4.375
1/2	0.5	2-5/16	2.3125	4-7/16	4.4375
17/32	0.53125	2-3/8	2.375	4-1/2	4.50
9/16	0.5625	2-7/16	2.4375	4-9/16	4.5625
19/32	0.59375	2-1/2	2.50	4-5/8	4.625
5/8	0.625	2-9/16	2.5625	4-11/16	4.6875
11/16	0.6875	2-5/8	2.625	5	5.00
3/4	0.75	2-11/16	2.6875	5-1/16	5.0625
13/16	0.8125	2-3/4	2.75	5-1/8	5.125
7/8	0.875	2-7/8	2.875	5-3/16	5.1875
13/16	0.8125	2-15/16	2.9375	5-1/4	5.25
15/16	0.9375	3	3.00	5-3/8	5.375
1	1.00	3-1/16	3.0625	5-7/16	5.4375
1-1/16	1.0625	3-1/8	3.125	5-1/2	5.50
1-1/8	1.125	3-3/16	3.1875	5-5/8	5.625
1-3/16	1.1875	3-1/4	3.25	5-3/4	5.75
1-1/4	1.25	3-5/16	3.3125	5-7/8	5.875
1-5/16	1.3125	3-3/8	3.375	5-15/16	5.9375
1-3/8	1.375	3-7/16	3.4375	6	6.00
1-7/16	1.4375	3-1/2	3.50
1-1/2	1.50	3-9/16	3.5625

You can include multiple units of your chosen profile type in your calculation by changing the figure in the ‘Quantity’ input in box (5) for solid bars or box (6) for hollow square bars.
Once you’ve entered all of the required information, you can use the ‘Calculate’ button to complete your calculation. You can also reset the square bar weight calculator using the ‘Reset’ button if you’d like to complete another calculation.

How to Calculate the Weight of a Square Bar

The easiest way to calculate the weight of a square bar is by using the calculator above.

It’s pretty straightforward to calculate the weight manually if preferred, though, using the following equation:

Weight = Material Density x Square Bar Volume

You can use this same equation regardless of whether you’re working with metric units, such as millimeters, centimeters, and meters, or imperial units, such as feet or yards.

Finding Material Density

We’ll discuss calculating the volume shortly, but the first part of the equation above requires finding the density of the material used in your square bar.

We can define the density as the square bar’s ‘mass per unit volume,’ or, in other words, how heavy the square bar is for a given size.

It’s pretty easy to find density figures for most material types with a quick search online. We always recommend using a manufacturer’s or supplier’s density data where available, though, as the actual values can vary depending on the particular material’s composition and variances in manufacturing technique, among other things.

Calculating Square Bar Volume

As per the above formula, the second input required is the square bar’s volume, which we can calculate as follows:

Volume = Cross-Sectional Area x Square Bar Length

The first input here is the square bar’s cross-sectional area, which you can calculate by multiplying the square bar’s width by itself. For example, if a square bar measures 2-inches in width, the cross-sectional area will be 2-inches multiplied by 2-inches (i.e., 4-inches squared overall).

The second input is relatively self-explanatory and consists of the overall length of the square bar.

Let’s look at a couple of real-life examples to show you step-by-step how to calculate the weight of a square bar:

How to Calculate the Weight of a Stainless Steel Square Bar

To calculate the weight of a solid square bar, we’ll need to know two dimensions, as shown in the following diagram:

Whereby:

L = The length of the square bar

W = The square bar’s width

It isn’t necessary to specify the square bar’s height or thickness as this will be the same as the width (given the bar’s square profile).

We also need to know the density of the stainless steel used for the bar, but we’ll focus on the dimensions only for now.

Let’s assume the following dimensions for the solid square bar in this example:

Length: 5m
Width: 0.05m

Step One

First, we need to calculate the square bar’s volume, and we can do this by multiplying the cross-sectional area of the bar by its length.

To get the area, we can multiply the square bar’s width by itself (given that the width will be the same as the bar’s height or thickness as a result of its square profile) as per the following equation:

Area = Width x Width
Area = 0.05m x 0.05m
Area = 0.0025m²

Step Two

Now that we’ve worked out the square bar’s cross-sectional area, we can calculate its overall volume using the following equation:

Volume = Area x Length
Volume = 0.2m² x 5m
Volume = 0.0125m³

Step Three

The final step is to multiply the square bar’s volume by the density of stainless steel to find the bar’s overall weight. We’ll assume a density of 7930 kg/m³ for the stainless steel (type 304, in this case, which is the most common type of stainless steel) in our example as follows:

Weight = Volume x Density
Weight = 0.0125m³ x 7930 kg/m³
Weight = 99.13 kg

As shown, if we multiply the bar’s volume by the typical density of type 304 stainless steel, we end up with a final weight of 99.13 kg or 218.53 lbs for the square bar in this example.

How to Calculate the Weight of a Hollow Square Bar

It’s relatively straightforward to calculate the weight of a hollow square bar, and you can do so in three distinct steps:

Step One

For the first step, we’ll treat the square bar as solid by disregarding the hollow section of the bar for now.

We can calculate the overall volume as follows:

V = (W x W) x L

The equation above consists of the following elements:

V = Volume

W = The outer width of the square bar

L = The square bar’s length

To show you how the calculation works, we’ll work through an example of a mild steel hollow square bar with an outer width of 0.1m and a length of 5-meters.

Here’s how the calculation works:

Overall Square Bar Volume = (0.1 x 0.1) x 5
Overall Square Bar Volume = 0.05m³

Step Two

Next, we need to calculate the volume of the hollow section of the square bar, and we’ll use the same equation from step one above to do so.

For this example, we’ll assume that the 0.1m wide square bar has a thickness of 0.01m, meaning the hollow section of the square bar has a width of 0.08m (0.1m minus two sides which measure 0.01m each in thickness).

Here’s how the second part of the calculation works:

Hollow Section Volume = (0.08 x 0.08) x 5
Hollow Section Volume = 0.032m³

Step Three

Finally, we need to subtract the volume of the hollow section of the square bar from the bar’s overall volume.

For example:

Total Volume = Overall Square Bar Volume – Hollow Section Volume
Total Volume = 0.05 – 0.032
Total Volume = 0.018m³

If we multiply the 0.018m³ volume figure by the 7850 kg/m³ density figure for mild steel, we end up with a weight of 141.30 kg or 311.51 lbs for the square bar.

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