Flow Converter

The flow converter switches a volumetric flow rate between 24 units spanning metric, US customary, and imperial measurement systems: liters per second, gallons per minute, cubic feet per minute (CFM), barrels per day, acre-feet per day, and others used across plumbing, HVAC, chemical engineering, and hydraulic system design.

• Values accept whole numbers, decimals, fractions such as 3/4, mixed numbers such as 5 1/2, and scientific notation such as 1.5e3; dollar signs, commas, and percentage symbols are stripped automatically.
• Each conversion runs through liters per second as the base unit: result = input value x (conversion factor to base / conversion factor from base).
• A swap control reverses the source and target units while keeping the current input value, useful for quick bidirectional checks.
• Settings holds the display precision (2 to 10 decimal places, default 4), an optional step-by-step derivation showing the conversion factor and intermediate calculation, and a view that shows the input value expressed in every available unit at once.

A well producing 500 barrels per day, run through liters per second as the base unit, comes to about 3.31 cubic meters per hour: 500 barrels x 158.987 liters per barrel = 79,493.5 liters per day, divided by 24 hours and converted to cubic meters. The same base-unit routing handles any pairing in the list, so a 2000 CFM airflow rating converts to approximately 3398 cubic meters per hour for a European ductwork spec, and a 2.5 GPM shower valve maps to roughly 0.158 liters per second for a pressure-loss calculation.

Volumetric flow rate conversions arise in any discipline that moves fluids or gases through pipes, ducts, channels, or processing equipment. Below are practical scenarios where rapid, accurate unit conversion prevents costly specification errors.

• HVAC Engineering: Translate cubic feet per minute (CFM) airflow ratings from US equipment datasheets into cubic meters per hour for metric ductwork sizing. A 2000 CFM rooftop unit, for instance, converts to approximately 3398 m³/h for integration with European building management systems.
• Plumbing Design: Convert fixture flow rates from gallons per minute (GPM) to liters per second when specifying pipe diameters under metric plumbing codes. A shower valve rated at 2.5 GPM maps to roughly 0.158 L/s for pressure-loss calculations.
• Oil and Gas Production: Express well output in barrels per day (bbl/d) and convert to cubic meters per hour or gallons per minute for pump selection and pipeline sizing. A well producing 500 bbl/d equates to about 3.31 m³/h.
• Chemical Process Engineering: Translate reactor feed rates between milliliters per minute and liters per hour during scale-up from laboratory benchtop equipment to pilot-plant vessels. Verifying flow rate equivalences prevents concentration errors in continuous processes.
• Irrigation and Water Resources: Convert acre-feet per day into gallons per minute or cubic meters per hour when sizing pumps for agricultural irrigation districts or municipal water treatment intake structures.
• Aquarium and Water Feature Maintenance: Match pump specifications in gallons per hour (GPH) to liters per hour when sourcing equipment from international suppliers. A 400 GPH circulation pump delivers roughly 1514 L/h.
• Fire Protection: Verify sprinkler system demand in GPM against municipal supply rates provided in liters per second. A sprinkler zone requiring 250 GPM needs a supply of at least 15.77 L/s from the water main.
• Laboratory Instrumentation: Convert gas flow controller setpoints between cubic centimeters per second and milliliters per minute for mass spectrometry carrier gas or chromatography mobile-phase tuning.