Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONVERSIONS
Units and Systems of Weights and Measures
International
Oil field System
System of Units - SI
Units adopted in the
COMMON PRACTICE of the
oil field industry
Ref: Petroleum Engineering Handbook
SI: the International System of Units
SI is a coherent system with seven base units for which names, symbols, and
definitions have been established.
The “base units” quantify seven base quantities that by convention are
regarded as dimensionally independent.
SI “derived units” are formed by combining base units according the algebraic
relations linking the corresponding quantities.
SI is not identical with any of the former cgs, mks, etc systems of metric units but
is closely related to them and is an extension of and improvement over them.
Ref: Petroleum Engineering Handbook
SI: the International System of Units
SI Unit
Base Quantity SI Unit Symbol Forumle
velocity meter per second m/s
acceleration meter per square second m/s2
density kilogram per cubic meter kg/m3
force newton N kg∙m/s2
pressure pascal Pa N/m2
Oil Field System
The oil field system is based on both U.S. & British units, SI units and peculiar units
adopted only in oil field.
Examples of units adopted in the COMMON PRACTICE of the oil field industry:
PRESSURE
• psi: pound per square inch (British units)
• bar, which is 105 Pa (SI)
TEMPERATURE
Temperature is usually expressed in °C Celsius degree (c.g.s. System)
Oil Field System
Examples of units adopted in the COMMON PRACTICE of the oil field industry:
PERMEABILITY
In the SI the permeability is expressed in [m2]
As common practice, permeability is expressed in millidarcy [md]
Mass kg g lb (pound)
Time s s h (hour)
Temperature K °C °R
Keep in mind !!
One particular warning is required about these prefixes:
Prefix
Nomenclature Value
Symbol
minutes min 60 s
days d 86400 s
CONVERSIONS
LENGTH - conversion factors
1 ft = 0.3048 m 1 ft = 12 in
Calculate:
Area
1 ft3 = ??? m3
1 ft = 0.3048 m 1 ft = 12 in
Calculate:
Area
1 ft3 0.0283 m3
MASS
1 lbm = 0.4536 kgm
TEMPERATURE
Absolute temperature
9
F 32 C ??????? Conversion factors
5
MASS & TEMPERATURE- conversion factors
MASS
1 lbm = 0.4536 kgm
TEMPERATURE
Absolute temperature
9 5
F 32 C K R Conversion factors
5 9
FORCE - conversion factors
kgf (force) and kgm (mass) numerically are the same, but they are relate to very
different concepts
1 kgf = ??? N
kgf (force) and kgm (mass) numerically are the same, but they are relate to very
different concepts
1 kgf = 9.80665 N
Force
Pressure =
Area
The SI unit for pressure is the Pascal (newton per square meter):
N
Pa =
m2
In cgs system the pressure unit is:
atm = 101325 Pa
Keep in mind !!
Starting from:
lbf
1 PSI = 1
in2
Starting from:
lbf
1 PSI = 1
in2
Mass
density =
Volume
lbm
density =
ft3
DENSITY – ex. 2
kgm
rw = 1000
m3
Calculate the water density value referred to cgs e Oil Field industry.
gm
rw = ???
cm3
lbm
rw = ???
ft3
DENSITY – ex. 2
kgm
rw = 1000
m3
Calculate the water density value referred to cgs e Oil Field industry.
gm
rw = 1
cm3
lbm
rw 62.43
ft3
DENSITY – ex. 3
Calculate:
Calculate:
R = gas constant
J
SI R 8314.4
kgmol K
OF ????
ex. 4
R = gas constant
J N 3
SI R 8314.4 J Nm 2
m Pa m3
kgmol K m
Parameters SI OF
Pressure Pa psi
Volume m3 ft3
Wt Wt = weight
Mole number kgmol lbmol n
MW MW = molecular weight
Temperature K °R
Molecular weight: “Mass per mole of a given substance where the unit mole must
be consistent with the unit of mass” kg lb
kmol ; lbm mol
psi f t3
OF R 10.73
lbmol R
Standard condition & Reservoir condition