I kept shooting the man-sand?ÿ at the hotmix plant and was being told there was supposed to be quite a bit more than I shot. One day I got a shovel and started digging. I gave up and got the guy with a backhoe to come dig a hole. They had been driving on 3 foot of man-sand. I had no idea where the bottom was, I was just doing like the original poster and using the toe of slope for the bottom. I have tried since then to get them to let me shoot the bottom before the first pile is delivered but it never happens.
I'm not sure what you need to do with this uncertainly calculations, but as other's have said volume for piles is dependent on many factors.
I would not use that calculation outside the office. It is basically meaningless with respect to the actual volume of material in a pile where compaction, voids, water, ect??...all play a bigger role.
The best you can do is have some independent checks.
Stating that you are within X.X% of reality is not particularly useful and could be one of those gotcha statements.
Well I say I'm within 2% and the load counts find that you are off 16%, which is real?
It's the old fight over volume of dirt, I'm sure almost everyone here has experienced it in some fashion.
I would argue that photo surveys are the way to do these, then you have checks outside the area of the pile, you can give out elevations for locations that are undisturbed even after the pile has been removed and let someone else check your elevations at that position.
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